Talk:Werner Erhard (book)

message: I too want to thank you Dave Apter for diving in and proposing for discussion a change to the content section. Overall, I agree with the proposed edits, along with some of Sensei's revisions, and some other's that I'd like to propose. I like that the proposed edit for the Contents section is split up into the three sections that relate to the "three related aspects of the book."  This is an important point about the book that is not adequately handled in the current version.  The book is really quite complex and a good portion of it is concerned with Bartley's philosophical and scholarly investigations into the various disciplines that Erhard studied. He calls these chapters of the book, "Intersections." I'd like to see a bit more about this dealt  with.    
My comments on the Life Story section:  
I do like Dave's more overall summary of the contents of the book, rather than the current version which cherry picks a few relatively minor points. The book is not even close to primarily being about how Erhard chose his name or names.  To lead with "The book recounts how Erhard, previously known as Jack Rosenberg, used the name Jack Frost in his work as a car dealer" is misleading as to the content of the book. The early life section takes up a full quarter of the entire book. Jack Rosenberg using the name Jack Frost when he was a salesman and why he did so is merely a few lines in the book, but if we want to leave it in it should be in context, so I added it with the full quote from the book in my proposed edit.  Here is a proposed rewrite: 
::Life story 
:: The book recounts how Erhard, originally named Jack Rosenberg, grew up and how his childhood events, job positions and self education lead to the development of the est training. As a child he was close to his mother and was inquisitive, read profusely and got A's in school. As a teenager he had conflicts with his mother and became dissatisfied with how things were going in his life.  Much to the sadness of his family, he interrupted his plans for higher education in order to marry and support his pregnant girlfriend Pat Campbell. During the first few years of their marriage he took on a variety of jobs including meat-packing, heating and plumbing, estimating and car sales. By the age of 21 he had become the top car salesman at the dealership he worked for. He adopted the name Jack Frost to use in his work as a car dealer. Erhard told Bartley, "By the time someone bought a car from me he knew that my real name was Jack Rosenberg. I wanted to give customers a name that was easy to remember when they were out shopping for a car."[Bartley-p.43]   
::By the time he was 25, Jack and Pat had four children but he was feeling increasingly restless and constrained. He formed a friendship with a woman named June Bryde, which gradually deepened into an affair. He secretly arranged a flight from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania with June in 1960, leaving behind his wife and their four children.[3] They settled for a time in St Louis and severed all contact with his family; it would be twelve years before they would hear from him again. It was at this time that he assumed the name Werner Erhard, and June called herself Ellen Erhard.
::After more work in car sales, he joined the sales staff of ‘’Parents’’ magazine where he was promoted to training manager and then to Vice-President in 1967. The Erhard's moved frequently to different parts of the US as dictated by the demands of the job, finally settling in San Francisco. When Parents Magazine was sold to the Time-Life group, he was recruited by the Grolier Society as Divisional Manager. John Wirtz, then vice president of the Grolier Society said, "Werner's demonstrated ability to develop programs of integrity, honesty, and straightforwardness and his ability to develop high-caliber people who could manage and carry out their own programs made him especially interesting to us." [Bartley p.146]  
My comments on the Personal search and self-education section:
Regarding the line, Erhard began to ponder the perennial issues of life, and to embark on a program of enquiry and self-education….  I’ve been struggling with how to write this without sounding adulatory, but this actually captures in summation what Bartley says throughout the whole book quite well.  A large part of the book deals with Erhard’s self generated impetus to think, learn, discover and create.  In the book it is clear that Erhard embarked on pondering the meaning of life from an early age and that it was his thinking about the “perennial issues of life” that was the seed of the est training.  It is kind of the point of the whole book. Perhaps too, this section should be where we look at Bartley’s investigation into the disciplines that Erhard studied. I’ll have a crack at it at a later time.  As it is I have spent way more time than I planned to on this, and I have got to get on with my day ... I'll come back later with some thoughts for the last section --MLKLewis (talk) 20:26, 18 August 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  MLKLewis' response to proposed edits 

message: Thanks to Dave for picking this up again. I understand Sensei48's concerns expressed above, about the summary sounding too reverential, but these shortcomings can be overcome. MLKLewis is going in the right direction there. Regarding the line, Erhard began to ponder the perennial issues of life, and to embark on a program of enquiry and self-education a more pedestrian version would be, "Erhard felt a need to understand the meaning of life, and read voraciously" (we should mention the "Intersections" in which Bartley presents Erhard's philosophical background). Lastly, if we mention that his brother and sister became est trainers, we should mention that his first wife too took an office job with est (p. 243). JN466 10:00, 21 August 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Hello Jayen, DavidApter, and MKL: I just wanted you all to know that I haven't forgotten this page and the proposed edits, and I'm sure that you won't be surprised that I have somewhat different suggestions. I've just been really busy in the real world of late and on some other Wiki projects. I will try mightily to get you all some feedback this week some time. I'm sure that together and working in good faith we can get some genuinely informative and neutral and needed changes into the article. regards, Sensei48 (talk) 05:24, 26 August 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Feedback from Jayen466 

message: Hello,
Was Werner Erhard born Jack Rosenberg or John Paul Rosenberg?
If not Jack then the Jack Rosenberg redirection should be deleted.
2A02:2788:22A:2BF:192A:B569:90D3:712D (talk) 00:30, 28 September 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Born … Rosenberg