Robert:

~~ Re your comparison-argument to me: a bit understandable 'perspective'; but, given your argument-as-analogy, re Willers being kept secretively 'out of the loop' re relations 'tween Dagny and...whoever, I'm not aware of Galt or even Rearden (never mind Willers) being in Dagny's 'loop' re her relations with Francisco. Such 'loops' were 'tween her and him, and later 'loops' re whoever...and no one else. Galt may or may not have known re Dagny and...her previous 'liasons'; what matter either, or implications re such knowledge-lack, whether talking 'Prime-Movers' or not? For all you argue as the fictional representation of how Rand handled relations and it's relevence to Piekoff, methinks you're stressing too much an aspect about 'secrets', which I already commented on the worth of such for gossip-oriented ones. --- Robert: you're 'pushing the envelope' of gossip-mongering now combined with personal-evaluation-worth via symbolic-representationalism. --- You're sounding like Ellen Stuttle/Gould, the oh-so-very-chatty 'name-dropper' who's always (been) busy attending 'important' things most of us can't (or couldn't) attend (though she writes that she's got a prob with 'reading' all others' writings; yeah, r-i-g-h-t).   Not an attractive character-trait, all things considered.

~~ As I said before: 'not nice'. If you've an actual 'argument' to make, make it; don't, like Ellen, merely innuend it.

~~ If you wish to stay credible re your other arguments, I'd avoid the continued advertising of your style-propensity to imply (or innuend, or insinuate) personal-oriented denigrations...as so many other gossip-mongerers have little prob about doing.

LLAP
J:D

This is from recent personal experience. Officers of the law saying that they have a right to issue punishment (citations, jail, etc.) and telling you "there's a law" that supports their doing so. You ask to be shown the law. They answer, "it's in the public record, you can go look it up." Thing is, as far as anyone knows -- as far as anyone has been able to produce, show, or demonstrate -- there is no such law. But it does give the man with the gun something of an unearned upper hand if he can appeal to some law and then tell you to go look it up. Yeah, go look for a law that, for all we know, is non-existent.

(The context of this is in connection with Robert C.'s charge of unobjective judgments of arbitrariness.)

There are times when the dislike of arbitrariness comes out most obviously. Rand bringing hippies over might be arbitrary on your view, but given everything we know about Rand, it's so outlandish that we can consider it false.

The arbitrary is the kind of thing that would send up a red flag in one's mind. I have in mind something like a defense of O.J. that said, "say that O.J. was framed." It's a hypothetical but being (presumably) of no factual basis, and against a big case of evidence, it's arbitrary if pushed as anything other than a hypothetical. ("It wouldn't contradict known fact" is about the only thing that makes it a hypothetical rather than a known falsehood.) If the only thing that a defense could come up with in the face of all the evidence is "maybe the evidence is manufactured," that's a prime instance of what ought to send up red flags re: arbitrariness. Evidence being manufactured is a "possibility" present in just about everything, which means in practicality, just about nothing (absent substantive evidence presented in the instance). That being so, cognitively it's empty space.

It's for the *not-outlandish* scenario that our red flags need to be brought up. Rand entertaining hippies in her apt. is outlandish enough that it's not in any danger of being mistakenly entertained as a possibility. (I do believe that we have plenty enough to go on to say with assurance that it's false.) A person on a jury might be fooled by an appeal to "possibility" like the above, though. Stuff that's just cognitively empty that has no business being brought up for substantive consideration.

BTW, as a humorous side-note, Harry Binswanger, according to Wikipedia, is said to have referred to Wikipedia as "the encyclopedia of the arbitrary." If I believe that, then I don't believe that . . .
(As it happens, I've been surprised at how decently accurate the Wikipedia is when I have independently-verified knowledge of things that it claims.)

We're hunting snark here. Rand's flaws or bust.

Mr. Campbell,

Fred's point about jealousy and its role in Objectivism is right on the mark, which frankly eviscerates the entire basis for your essay, in which you further posit, mysteriously, that defending Rand from the charge of jealousy is a "major sub-point" of PARC. The "jealousy" topic is merely one piece of one specific argument against one specific charge: that the "break" was an inevitable outcome of Ayn Rand's psychology with regard to the affair.

So before we take your article as a serious criticism either of some aspect of Ayn Rand or of PARC, it has to be shown that you're saying something important.

(http://rebirthofreason.com/Articles/Campbell/Ayn_Rand_Jealous.shtml)

Jealousy in itself is morally neutral, at least according to Objectivism. I haven't read or heard an argument to the contrary, nor could I imagine one; I think it's a fairly obvious point to anyone familiar with the philosophy. Fred pointed out that it was the Objectivist view of envy, the *hatred* of a *person* who possesses something one desires or considers good, that you were (haphazardly) leaning on. On the other hand, one could make an argument that jealousy can be a *proper* expression of the virtue of pride.

On the ubiquitous "moral perfection" boogieman:

You've mentioned somewhere that you treat the argument of how Ayn Rand "would have proceeded" on a certain philosophical issue (or what her emotional state would have been in a certain situation) as a modal claim, one that assumes her moral perfection a priori. The problem with your objection is that it ignores the fact that people tend to exhibit *patterns* of behavior, ones that can be assumed to be operative without evidence to the contrary. The little evidence that exists about AR with regard to jealousy is that she didn't have much of it (whether you think this was a good or a bad thing), so it is perfectly natural to scrutinize claims to the contrary. The journal entries you cited in your essay, when one considers them in their full context, consistently point to anger, bewilderment, and disgust on her part for what it means about NB *if what he was telling her about his own mind during those sessions was true*. Jealousy hardly describes it, though you're right that it isn't necessarily *incompatible* with the other emotions involved.

One needn't merely assume her moral perfection and deduce away. On the other hand, Objectivism is fairly explicit to the effect that moral perfection is possible, so there's something strange about implying that there's something sinister about the claim of Rand's moral perfection as such.

Robert, let's be accurate about what we both said concerning public acknowledgement of the affair.

You claimed that Ayn Rand had, "...apparently counted on them to keep the affair secret even after excoriating them in public for reasons not fully specified, and telling her followers to shun them."

In whatever terms the Brandens couched it, they explicitly implied that the reason for the break concerned an affair. It hardly matters whether they suggested that AR wanted to start or re-start one. They didn't keep it a secret.

As for your "propensity to rush to conclusions" and your satisfaction in learning that the rumors you had heard earlier about the affair in fact turned to be true, what you are totaling ignoring is (1) that the affair was not the cause of the break and (2)what the actual cause was, namely, the Brandens deception and lies - deception and lies, btw, which have continued up to the present day.

More importantly - and what you are clearly evading - is that all along (both back then and in their books) the Brandens have been claiming that the reason for the break was "a woman scorned". As for Ayn Rand's anger at their deception and outright lies, oh well, that's just "the angry (and supposedly jealous) Ayn Rand".

So, in regard to your accusation of what AR was supposedly "counting on" I'll remind you of what I said, " ...Ayn Rand was clearly not 'counting on' anything in regard to them. If she had been concerned about it, she would not have made the break so public. There are any number of ways someone else - someone not Ayn Rand - might have attempted to smooth over their differences or cover it up, in short to have 'faked reality', for the sake of 'public opinion'."

All that apparently tells you about Ayn Rand is that she must have been "counting on" on something, suggesting that she was "counting on" something other than the truth.

Whereas Barbara Branden gets a pat on the head because she had said there was an affair and, golly gee, there was one.

You state: "Is it possible for a reasonable person to read PARC, carefully, and draw different conclusions from those that Mr. Valliant wishes his readers to draw?"

It is not possible to have read PARC and honestly not notice that Rand continued a business relationship after finding out that Branden had an "insuperable" age barrier to continuing a sexual relationship.

It is not possible to have read PARC and still believe that the only new revelation was that Branden claimed a "sexual freeze."

It is impossible for someone who has read PARC to say Rand was "in charge of the entire operation."

I have listed the other things you missed already that are new and absolutely impossible to miss by someone who has read PARC.

Did you read PARC? If I were you, I'd say I haven't yet in order to save face. Hint: It's an out -- take it.

Mr. Fahy,

I've read Mr. Valliant's interpretations of Rand's journal entries.  I've read most of them twice, if you really want to know.  How would I know, for instance, that Mr. Valliant accepted Rand's role as a psychotherapist, or praised her philosophico-psychological diagnoses of Nathaniel Branden, if I hadn't read them?

All I said was that I read Rand's journal entries on my own first, without consulting Mr. Valliant's interpretations of them, then read Mr. Valliant's interpretations later.

How many times now have you alleged that I didn't read Mr. Valliant's book--or that I didn't read parts of it?

Is it possible for a reasonable person to read PARC, carefully, and draw different conclusions from those that Mr. Valliant wishes his readers to draw?

Or do you take disagreement with Mr. Valliant's conclusions to be proof of either (a) not reading or (b) irrationality (to wit, willful evasion during and after reading)?

In the wake of PARC's publication, is disagreement with Mr. Valliant's conclusions by those who have read his opus proof of adhering to "inherently dishonest ideas"?

Robert Campbell

Ms. Valliant,

Of course Nathaniel Branden needs to shoulder a lot of the blame for the misuses of psychotherapy during the NBI days.

And he needs to shoulder the blame for lying to Ayn Rand.  (As though that even needed repeating.)

The question is whether Ayn Rand, an extremely smart if not genius-level individual, who was in the charge of the entire operation, must also shoulder some of the blame.

The tactic of loading all the negatives onto NB reminds me of the argument that there were no excommunications going on in the NBI days... or, if there were, NB was behind all of them.  NB was acting as AR's agent in these cases.  If he hid any of his excommunicatory activities from AR, it's news to me.

Robert Campbell

Campbell,

No, just observation. You did insult a bunch of people and won't recognize this fact.

It's not just my adorable husband, I can read, too.

With your evasion you tell us all to "fuck off."

So, "fuck off" back atcha!

Bill,

Your report of NB's reaction (to being asked what would have happened had he or BB revealed the existence of the affair while AR was alive) is helpful information.

But there could be more than one motive for treating it as out of the question. Sure, NB could have been afraid of AR's wrath. I wouldn't rule it out. But I can see other possible motives as well. For instance, as an older female friend of mine once remarked, men are not always eager to talk about affairs with women 25 years old than themselves, in which the woman was clearly in charge.

How would Ayn Rand have reacted, if NB or BB had published about the affair during her lifetime? We'll never know for sure, but I think it's worth asking.

Perhaps a better question is: Given her determination to keep the affair secret, should she have been tested in that way?

Robert Campbell

Ayn Rand didn't even want to be a psychoanalyzer of Branden -- she hated it, in fact. That's obvious from her notes. Branden was picking her brain for ideas. That is part of the shabby truth: The disowned self, repression, rationalism, even word association techniques can be traced to these bone-picking sessions.

Mr. Weiss,

You suggested, a few posts back, that "Answer to Ayn Rand" outed AR's affair with NB all the way back in 1968. But of course it didn't.

For instance, I read NB and BB's answer in 1972, and noted an allegation that AR was trying to start an affair with NB. Not to restart one, or continue one. "Answer to Ayn Rand" is widely criticized for being misleading, on precisely this score.

All I could tell from "To Whom It May Concern" and "Answer to Ayn Rand" was that each side was holding something back--and that Rand was demanding a lot more out of her readers.

When I first heard a rumor of AR's affair with NB (around the spring of 1974; the source was Edith Efron, talking to some people I knew at dinner after a speech--I attended the speech, but not the dinner) I filed it away mentally as "This is pretty wild shit, if it’s true--but is it true?" I didn't know whether the story of the affair was true or not, and I refrained from passing judgment on it, until I read The Passion of Ayn Rand.

(In between, 12 years went by. So much for my propensity to rush to conclusions, where Ayn Rand was concerned.)

I think that when employing 20/20 hindsight, it’s easy to discount an important fact about The Passion of Ayn Rand. It purported to reveal a secret affair between AR and NB. And, who’d a thunk it, that revelation was true.

Robert Campbell

Ms. Valliant,

If psychologizing really meant what Rand said it meant--making judgments about other people's motives without adequate evidence or argument--wouldn't your comment about my "capacity to evade" be a prime example of...

psychologizing?

Robert Campbell

Mr. Weiss,

Let me put this is a clearer form, then:  arbitrariness is a potentially objectively assessable quality.  In other words, you don't get to conclude that some proposition is arbitrary, merely because you don't like it, or you don't want to mess with it.  If you're going to make a judgment of arbitrariness, be prepared to back it up, or your audience will be well within its rights to conclude that your judgment is nonobjective.

If you don't want to respond to a single passage from my essay, that's your right.  But I don't recommend going around claiming, without anything to back up your reasoning, that every last thing in it was arbitrary.  Not false, not poorly reasoned, not even pretty damned improbable--but in such a dire condition that every last solitary proposition I put forward about Ayn Rand and jealousy has nothing going for it at all.

Here's a genuinely arbitrary proposition: "Ayn Rand was in the habit of recruiting hippies off the streets of New York City and offering them peyote in her living room, while loud psychedelic music blasted through her apartment."  We know what it means, and we know that some people who were around at the time might have done this, but not a single available fact supports the proposition that it was possible that Ayn Rand did this.

Do you really mean to say that everything I had to say about Ayn Rand and jealousy is on the level of "Ayn Rand was in the habit of recruiting hippies off the streets of New York City and offering them peyote..."?  That's what your talk about arbitrary speculation implies.

Your comments about Atlas Shrugged have yet to address Part II, Chapter IX.

Suffice it to say that, in my opinion, Hank Rearden is fated to lose Dagny to John Galt, and one of the indicators is his strong jealous feelings, which are meant to be taken as a flaw--a sign of insecurity.  The reference to Dagny's jealousy in that little vignette set in Galt's Gulch is an inside joke, like Alfred Hitchcock's showing up in one of his movies--the writer who looks after Galt with unrequited love in her eyes is meant to be Ayn Rand herself.

Robert Campbell

Robert,

However we evaluate particular instances of Rand's behavior, and we do need examples, who do you suppose was personally most responsible for the "psychotherapeutic" aspect of Objectivism in the 60s? Do we want to measure the contribution of the Brandens to "the Movement"? Here's an example, I think.

But it's your capacity to evade that is worth noting. You might want to address the other person's point on occasion, too. I do not think that further discussion would be "fruitful" because of this.

I'd like to chime in at this point and say that I think Casey's reply to Robert Campbell is excellent.

The complete deception of Rand by Nathaniel Branden, a deception he admits to, is evidence of a level of dishonesty that's amazing. It's simply not something that should be defended. To speculated on Rand's "jealousy" and attribute to her a huge stack of negative traits is both baseless and annoying. Casey has a good point about the conventional jealousy thing, as well.

Speculation on this whole ARI/Valliant division of labor thing is equally ridiculous. If the Brandens can write about Rand negativly, then why is it wrong for others to write a counter-point book? If ARI supported that book, even by simply allowing access to Rand's papers, what's the problem? I think it's fair to say that the people at the ARI are not supporters of the Brandens. The reasons are obvious.

While I've disagreed with many things Casey has said in the past, I think he's hit the nail on the head here.

I'm also seeing Mr. Perry's comment about many people who seem to have a hatred of Rand as being rather accurate. What gives?

Ethan

And your comments were very valuable and I hope everyone on this thread reads them to appreciate the actual view Rand had on the subject of jealousy vs. envy.

I'm sure you are right. I'm just commenting here on Robert's claims.

Btw, I've just started to read PARC. Much of it I already knew, but I'm still very impressed with it so far and I look forward to the rest.

You state: "I'm not impressed by the revelations about the age issue, or the passages in which Rand contemplates a less than complete break with NB--because they do not represent her final thoughts or feelings on the matter."

How can you drop so much context? First of all, PARC reveals that the age issue had already been broached and a business relationship was already continuing before the break. (Something else you missed, apparently.) The break was because of the revelation of Branden's deception. Her final thoughts or feelings on the matter were not about the age issue. The passages in which Rand writes about these things that the Brandens never mention, and which directly contradict their stories, were written in the moment, when she thought Branden was an honest man and struggling with these issues. She claimed that she could understand the age issue, and that a business relationship would continue. She did not claim that if it turned out Branden was lying to her in tortuous psychology sessions for years while carrying on an affair with a woman he disparaged to her that she would understand and the business relationship would continue. If Branden HAD been an honest man dealing with these issues, he would have had an out and kept his business, too. Stop trying to turn this into Ayn Rand's flaw.

ADDED POST SCRIPT:

You SHOULD be "impressed by the revelations about the age issue" AND "the passages in which Rand contemplates a less than complete break with NB" because they show Rand was explicitly reasonable about this issue and the Brandens lied about it. And you should have noticed that Rand DID IN FACT continue the business relationship after the age complaint despite the Brandens' baseless claims. You claim that you're not impressed by this and that there is only one new revelation in PARC. Well, it's a clue to your cluelessness, at least.

My advice to you is this: Perhaps you SHOULD read Valliant's annotations to Rand's journal entries, since without them you have a lot of difficulty in placing them into the timeline and context of the events in question.

Those are all good points. However, in the case of Branden and Rand, and as clearly shown in Rand's contemporaneous notes, the feelings she had for Branden by the time she found out about his years-long affair with Patrecia, after all the disparaging things Branden had said about Patrecia and after all the years he rubbed her nose in his disturbing psychological problems, and after all of it turned out to be rubbish, added up to DISGUST. Every last bit of love she ever had for the man was completely trashed by that point. How could she be jealous of Patrecia? It is a typically grandiose self-importance on Branden's part to claim that Rand felt jealousy over him at that point. One cannot feel that level of revulsion for a man and yet still be jealous for his attentions. Branden, (surprise, surprise) flatters himself with this convenient cliche.

Robert, I would have been happy to address any of your so-called "analyses" if there was any that rose to that level of consideration. It is all entirely speculation on your part.

As you say in another post, the arbitrary is *potentially* objectively assessable. But what you clearly need to learn is that the potential is not the same as *the actual*.

As for jealousy in AR's fiction, may I provide some *evidence* of my point:

"(Rearden) felt a murky, twisting pain: it was jealousy of every man who spoke to her. He had never felt it before; but he felt it here, where everyone had the right to approach her, except himself."

I don't know exactly how this jealousy "bodes" for him, but it is certainly not a reflection on his self-esteem.

"Dagny jerked her head to look back and saw the glance with which the young woman stood looking after Galt. And even though hopelessness, serenely accepted, was part of the worship in that glance, she experienced a feeling she had never known before: a stab of jealousy."

Did this "stab of jealousy" reflect a problem of self-esteem?

What are you trying to do?

Mr. Weiss,

I've already made some remarks here at SOLOPassion, about arbitrary judgments of arbitrariness.  It looks to me as though you've just provided more case material.  You're apparently convinced that I misread every passage out of Rand's journals that I quoted in my essay--but since you've rendered the summary verdict of arbitrariness, you're relieved of the need to rebut any of my analyses.

Whatever.  I could pronounce all of your claims to be arbitrary, and therefore not in need of rebuttal from me.  But I suspect this tactic wouldn't persuade anyone presently inclined to agree with you.  It might not even go over well with people presently inclined to agree with me.

For a portrayal of jealousy in Ayn Rand's fiction, I recommend Part II, Chapter IX of Atlas Shrugged.  Hank Rearden's jealousy doesn't seem to bode well for him at all. Meanwhile, jealousy on Dominique Francon's part doesn't count, unless it comes from the final sections of The Fountainhead.  Before that point, Dominique strikes me as having a few self-esteem problems...

Robert Campbell

Ms. Valliant,

I have to thank you for finally addressing the issue posed by Ayn Rand's willingness to function as a psychotherapist.

But I get the impression that you don't take it seriously.

Thomas Szasz has already made a charge, in his book Faith in Freedom (published in 2004), to the effect that Rand and her Inner Circle, during the NBI days, were engaged in a practice of indoctrination comparable to what prevailed in old-fashioned psychoanalysis.  (In psychoanalytic institutes, every student of psychoanalysis had to undergo a "training analysis" conducted by one of the professors.)

Szasz made these remarks before PARC was published.  Had he known what was in PARC, he could have used it to strengthen his case.

You are of course right that Nathaniel Branden should have objected, strenuously, to Rand's functioning as a psychotherapist.  I am not sure what kind of reaction he would have gotten--but that is a secondary consideration.  In any event, Rand was in charge, and the responsibility for setting herself up as a therapist was her own.  And it's not as though her sessions with NB, starting in 1967, were her first.

According to Ellen Stuttle, Rand's article on psychologizing, which condemns amateur psychotherapy, was written after Allan Blumenthal tried to convince her to stop offering psychological diagnoses of virtually everyone around her.  Perhaps the disastrous results of trying to counsel NB had made an impact?

Unfortunately, the article was a total hash.

I do not use the word "psychologize"--in fact, have never used it--because as employed by Rand it has no objective definition.  (Yes, she tries to offer one, but in her own article she proceeds to do exactly what she says no one should be doing, and she puts forth as an alternative to "psychologizing" a policy of focusing purely on other people's conscious convictions, which is not in fact how human beings function in their dealings with other human beings.)

All that "psychologize" means, in the Randian lexicon, is "make judgments about other people's motives, of which Ayn Rand disapproves."  In anyone else's hands, "psychologize" means "make judgments about other people's motives, of which I disapprove."  All you get out of this is an endless spiral of subjective accusations of psychologizing.

There's no substitute for establishing standards of evidence and argument for assessing other people's motives.  Talk of psychologizing neither establishes proper standards nor identifies failures to meet them.  (Kind of like talk of the arbitrary... the difference being that arbitrariness is potentially objectively assessable, though you'd never know that from all of the judgments of arbitrariness that fly around in Rand-land.)

Robert Campbell

Robert, I'll confess that I haven't read the discussion in the thread you allude to.

http://rebirthofreason.com/Articles/Campbell/Ayn_Rand_Jealous.shtml

The prospect of wading through over 250 posts is a bit daunting. So, I'll admit up front that I may be missing something.

I did however read your essay. I found nothing in it which supports your claim of Ayn Rand's jealousy. However since - judging from reading that and a number of your other essays and comments - you clearly have no problem with arbitrary speculation as a mode of argument, I suppose anything is possible.

But that aside, what if Ayn Rand had been jealous? So what?

I totally reject your statement, "The Objectivist ethics does not look favorably on jealousy. The judgments that a jealous person makes of a rival are far from being models of epistemic objectivity, and jealous feelings are regarded as a sure sign of low self-esteem."

On what do you base that? If that were true, then Ayn Rand regarded Dominique, Hank Rearden, and Dagny Taggart as having low self-esteem, since they all experienced jealousy.

The negative emotion you may be thinking of is *envy*, not jealousy. Jealousy is merely the desire to have something possessed by someone else. It can be a perfectly natural and innocent emotion. Envy in contrast is jealousy combined with *resentment* and suggests ill-will toward the object of comparison. It is envy, not jealousy, which makes people of low self-esteem feel pleasure at the failure or defeat of someone else.

Thanks, Bill, for the links to McElroy and Brown (the first rather liking PARC:TCATB, the second rather not, excerpts below).

I take your point re: summation vs verdict, but do stand by my impression above. Thanks also for the cordial tone, much appreciated after my grandstanding on an earlier thread. SOLO is really the place to be lately, at once entertaining, passionate and fair . . . my best wishes for your quest.

Regarding the Grand Guignol references, this was for my hardcore fans only, and refers back to earlier SOLO excursions you may not be familiar with but well within my canon:

Grisly stupid movies
Rand and Psychological Revolutions
Universe of Evil

WSS

McElroy:

    The style of Valliant's defense has drawn as much fire
    as its content. For example, Valliant has been accused
    of constant repetition, of giving the benefit of all
    doubt to Rand and none to the Brandens, of
    exaggerating the Brandens' misdeeds and motives, etc.
    In his review of The Passion, David M. Brown of
    Laissez-Faire Books correctly observes of Valliant,
    "he's smart enough to know that this is not all the
    fault of one party, however much he may have focused
    his mind on the task of letting Rand utterly off the
    hook."

    I agree. But such criticism misses the point.

    Valliant's book is not a scholarly work that aims to
    provide a balanced view; nor does it pretend to be.
    Valliant's book is not written in a "popular" manner
    that seeks to entertain; nor does it pretend to be.
    The Passion is best viewed as a legal brief, with all
    the strengths and weaknesses inherent in that sort of
    document.

    Valliant, a real-life district attorney, has taken on
    Rand as a client whom he defends against the
    Brandens' accusations. And the best defense is an
    offense, with the Brandens becoming "the accused."
    Like a good attorney, he does not credit both sides;
    he does not give the opposition any benefit of the
    doubt. He advocates for his client. In saying this, I
    do not suggest that Valliant has adopted the attitude
    of "I stand by Rand, right or wrong." Rather, I
    believe he decided before conceiving the book that
    Rand was overwhelmingly in the right and, then,
    adopted a legalistic style of demonstrating his
    conclusion.

Brown:

Yes, the Brandens lied to Ayn Rand about Nathaniel's
love life. According to their eventual accounts,
Nathaniel Branden and Ayn Rand had a somewhat
tumultuous affair, starting when Nathaniel was in his
early twenties, and with the knowledge and consent of
their spouses. After the publication of Atlas Shrugged
in 1957, the sexual part of their relationship faded.
Several years later, when Rand wished to resume,
Nathaniel was reluctant to admit he was no longer
interested. He feared her wrath and apparently also
feared losing his spot as co-leader of the Objectivist
movement. So he lied about the state of his feelings
for her. He also lied about his feelings for another
woman (not Barbara, another other woman). All this
dragged on for years. Barbara did not know the full
truth all along but did learn it eventually and helped
hide it from Rand before finally letting the cat out
of the bag.

And what do we learn from Valliant's book? The exact
same thing. There are nits for Valliant to pick, yes.
Damning inferences aplenty to be drawn. But in outline
it's the same tale. The Brandens tell a story, one
which doesn't exactly exculpate themselves, which is
exactly the same story evidenced by Rand's notes. It
is the same story previewed at length, elaborated at
length, and summarized at length by Valliant, who
wants to make sure the reader gets it.

As Ayn Rand and Nathaniel Branden dragged themselves
through the last months of their disintegrating
relationship, Ayn couldn't figure Nathaniel out. The
reason? One, he was lying to her, that's the most
obvious point. But Rand also seemed to do what many
people do in such circumstances. She failed to
confront the fact that even if someone doesn't have
the guts to tell you to your face that it's over, that
doesn't mean it's not over. Still, at times in her
notes Rand says it seems Branden wants her to end it,
which is pretty close to admitting that the thing is
already dead. At other times she comes up with complex
psychological theories to explain Branden's seemingly
malevolent deficits of character, as manifested by his
"sex problem" or his inexplicable friendliness toward
a younger woman.

Valliant, needless to say, doesn't exactly exculpate
the Brandens either. Nor does he ever give them the
benefit of the doubt when it might make sense to do
so. Rand, of course, is always tendered the benefit of
the doubt. And Valliant is always there to pound his
case home, even during the part of the book where Ayn
Rand is supposedly allowed finally to speak for
herself, the part that transcribes her private notes.
In this part of the book, delicately entitled
"Documenting the Rape of Innocence," we have Valliant
valiantly interrupting Rand again and again, without
end, amen, to explain an issue at greater length, put
it in context, tell Rand she's so right.

What happened between Ayn and Nathaniel from 1954-
1968? Who is responsible for what failings and to what
extent? I have my ideas, but I don't really know the
whole story for sure. I don't think there's any way I
can. I don't think Valliant can either. But he's smart
enough to know that this is not all the fault of one
party, however much he may have focused his mind on
the task of letting Rand utterly off the hook. In any
case, this is the stuff of private lives, and in
various forms the pattern has played itself out many
times over. It's personal stuff, nobody else's
business but your own and perhaps a few intimates in
whom you choose to confide, which doesn't mean you
can't see it on trash shows like "Jerry Springer" and
"Cheaters." But because in this case the mess is
tangled up with Rand's novelistic and philosophical
achievement and the movement that she and Branden
created, and because they were both so important to so
many people, and because Rand got the ball rolling
with her vindictive attack on the Brandens in The
Objectivist, their relationship has become the stuff
of countless briefs and affidavits and charges and
counter-charges in the court of public opinion.

It's a federal case, now. If you want a final verdict,
Valliant's screed provides one.

Mr. Fahy,

It is a false alternative to claim that Rand was angry at Nathaniel Branden and Patrecia Scott, first on account of suspected deception, later on account of proven deception--"therefore" she could not have been jealous of Patrecia Scott (or insulted by NB's choice of a "chorus girl" type over herself).

One hardly precludes the other.  In the history of relationships gone bad, I should think the combination has been rather common.

I would never have made an issue of Rand's jealousy, or sense of insult, had Mr. Valliant not repeatedly insisted that she wasn't jealous.  I read Rand's journal entries and concluded that she was jealous of Patrecia Scott--not that she wasn't angry at being deceived.

What makes PARC worth its purchase price is the journal entries, which anyone can read and form his or her own conclusions about.  What I believe will prove disappointing to Mr. Valliant and his supporters in the longer run is the discrepancies between what the journal entries say, and what he keeps telling the reader to think they say.  But no one has to take my word for any of this, because the journal entries are in the book.

Robert Campbell

PS. I'm not impressed by the revelations about the age issue, or the passages in which Rand contemplates a less than complete break with NB--because they do not represent her final thoughts or feelings on the matter.  (For instance, I'm convinced, from reading her own journal entries, that the "Miss X" offer would have been promptly withdrawn had NB said he wanted to take her up on it.)  In point of fact, NB was deceiving AR, and had been doing so for a long while.  Once she knew that, was she not going to break with him?  My own view is that AR should have broken with NB, given the history of deception.  What she should not have done is denounce NB over the public address system and make the kinds of demands she made on her followers in "To Whom It May Concern," without providing the full context.

Mr. Campbell,

I've heard of psychotherapists' Canons of Ethics, but a lovers' canon? Could someone have their lover's license suspended for violations? Branden, who WAS a psychotherapist, was in a better or worse position to know this? Ever question the giant fraud he was pulling in all of this counseling? Was that admitted to by the Brandens?

Oh, yes, "Mr. Valliant... is quite capable of speaking for himself." He is capable of reading and writing -- and has done both here at his forum.

Mr. Valliant is also capable of reading and comprehending assertions that he is apparently beyond rational discourse, and an "ARI true believer" who wants us all to get on our knees in order to worship at the altar of Rand. Is that about right? He is capable of reading insults and responding accordingly. He's certainly capable of exposing rank true believers who cannot see the many contradictions, errors and implausibilities in the Brandens' books. He not only can read such a book -- something that still seems a challenge for some -- he can write one.

You'd be amazed at the range of his capabilities.

You state: "The only deception revealed in PARC that was not already admitted in Judgment Day is NB's claim of "sexual paralysis"--and you're darn tootin' this qualifies as outrageous bullshit."

You cite this only to dismiss it and proceed with the claim of jealousy. And this "only deception" stuff shows what a demanding reader you are. Rand repeatedly brings up the issue of age and tells Branden she would understand if that was an issue for him. No, he would not be the Cyrano-scale hero she hoped if that was an issue for him, but she makes clear that ending the affair for that reason would NOT mean ending "all he had built" as Branden recounts. Both her addressing head-on the age issue and the fact that it would not have resulted in the end of their business dealings are new revelations in PARC.

Mr. Fahy,

No, judging from your latest, there is no point in arguing with you.  I applaud your editing of Rand's journal entries, as presented in PARC.  Beyond that, I see little going on in your contributions to debates about PARC, except pit-bulling for Mr. Valliant.  Yet Mr. Valliant doesn't seem to need the pit-bulling, as he is quite capable of speaking for himself.  What's more, when I have asked he has rather consistently refused to comment on anything that you say.

However, those who have not yet made their minds up as to whether Ayn Rand was jealous of Patrecia Scott can see my essay at

http://rebirthofreason.com/Articles/Campbell/Ayn_Rand_Jealous.shtml

They can follow the comments down the thread attached thereto, and judge for themselves (a) what I actually said in my article, and (b) whether Mr. Fahy, Mr. Valliant, or anyone else "thrashed" my argumentation, roundly or in any other fashion.

I will say this.  I did not claim, and I do not believe, that Ayn Rand was "just jealous" of Patrecia Scott.  I was responding to Mr. Valliant's insistence that AR wasn't jealous of Patrecia, indeed that she could not have been.  As I've said all along, the best way to resolve that issue is to read all of Rand's journal entries in PARC, leaving out Mr. Valliant's editorializing, and judge for yourself.

I did not deny that Nathaniel Branden, Barbara Branden, and Patrecia Scott were deceiving Ayn Rand.  In fact, I have referred to what NB was telling AR during their "psychotherapy" sessions as "bullshit," even "outrageous bullshit."  (The only deception revealed in PARC that was not already admitted in Judgment Day is NB's claim of "sexual paralysis"--and you're darn tootin' this qualifies as outrageous bullshit.  It does, however, make sense of a certain scene in Judgment Day that Mr. Valliant doesn't recognize as historical, in which AR tells NB that he deserves to be impotent for 20 years...)

Robert Campbell

PS. Both you and Mr. Valliant continue to accept without question Ayn Rand's choice to act as a psychotherapist--for her estranged lover, no less.  Several times I have raised the point that in the clinical professions, AR's acting in that role is considered unethical.  I will quit wasting my breath, as neither of you has ever responded.  Whether you choose to address it or not, this is an issue that is going to weigh in the wider world's response to PARC.

What is the point of arguing with you? Now you imply that James Valliant was tapped in some division of labor master plan to take on the Brandens' books -- ridiculous nonsense that has been refuted over and over but you trot it out once again anyway as though it still has some merit or because you are so devious as to be appealing only to those who have not read the copious comments on PARC that you blithely refer to. You make gross speculations that imply Rand thought of Peikoff as Eddie Willers because she did not inform him about private matters she herself never wished to think about again, and for reasons you know well if you've read PARC, and ominously refer to all the dastardly things Peikoff has done with no evidence to back up any of it. The sneer that is present in all of your writing about Rand is palpable and ugly -- yet for some reason you endeavor to edit a scholarly journal about Rand's ideas. But it's true believer mentality to detect hostility to Rand here, of course. (Is Bill a true believer now? Or is he part of the ARI's division of labor? Who better to endorse the methodology of PARC than a former officer of TOC to distance the issue from Peikoff, after all?)

Your pathetic argument that Rand was jealous of Patrecia was roundly thrashed in the comments and shown to be shoddy and agenda-driven "scholarship" at best. Yet you use it as a footnote anyway as though it is now an established contradiction in PARC and evidence of your true believer conspiracy theory.

For the record: Nathaniel Branden requested psychological counseling for his "sexual freeze" while holding out hope for continuing a sexual relationship with Rand for 4 1/2 years while he was secretly conducting an affair with Patrecia. Patrecia, during this time, according to Branden, told him she thought Rand was crazy while she also requested psychological sessions with Rand. Meanwhile, Branden was acting the producer while preparing to put on a play of The Fountainhead (his secret girlfriend was an actress) and Barbara Branden, for a substantial part of this time, was helping Branden maintain the illusion that his marriage to Barbara was still salvagable despite the fact that she was already having affairs also concealed from Rand. All three of these people were playing Rand for years while reaping the benefits of her ideas and work in the most cynical and exploitative fashion imaginable. Indeed, they were counting on Rand being unable to imagine such a level of deceit from people who claimed to be such fiercely loyal defenders. Nathaniel Branden himself told Rand he thought of Patrecia as an "Eddie Willers" -- a character Branden later claimed he thought was contemptibly ill-conceived -- and told Rand he considered Patrecia to be inferior to him.

You throw out all of this context and ascribe Rand's suspicions about Patrecia's character to jealousy -- even though by ALL ACCOUNTS Rand was remarkable for her lack of jealousy over other women and even suggested that Branden have an affair with a younger sexy woman to regain his lost libido and had no problem with Branden's marriage to Barbara and even tried to help him maintain that marriage.

Though Rand was obviously an unconventional woman with regard to jealousy, you continuously appeal to the conventional mindset to peddle the conventional cliche of Rand the jealous woman scorned despite all of the profound evidence to the contrary. That both Brandens and Patrecia were DECEIVING Rand in such a cynical manner has no relevance whatsoever to you regarding her suspicions and confoundment concerning the Brandens' and Patrecia's behavior. Nope, she was just jealous. And anyone who says otherwise is a true believer.

When someone needs to edit out this much context in order to make a point, THAT is a "true believer" mentality. You don't even attempt to deal with this context -- you just leave it out. You, sir, are a true believer: that Rand had to be tarnished and hypocritical, that nobody's "perfect" (in some Platonic sense that is irrelevant, non-Objectivist and religious), that ARI is sinister, that Objectivism is impossible and hopelessly idealistic. And whatever inconvenient facts you can assume are buried in past threads or inside the pages of PARC you may simply ignore.

Prof. Campbell,

In On Ayn Rand (2000), Gotthelf says:

"There is, unfortunately, not much of serious interpretive value among the secondary material that has been published on Ayn Rand in books or academic journals to date. I will survey some of this material in an essay to be published elsewhere . . .”

This article has not, to my knowledge, been published. On the internet you will see ARI associates attack non-ARI types, but seldom in print and in journals. Is the mere mention of Sciabarra, the Dougs, etc. a "no no" to these people? Why not interact with them in a journal and in print, so that it's preserved?

John D,

I actually feel sympathy for Leonard Peikoff, on this particular issue of discovering the affair between Ayn Rand and Nathaniel Branden only after her death.  And Peikoff has done so many things to make himself hard to sympathize with...

Not only was he expected to go around and denounce Nathaniel Branden, even (during some periods) discourage everyone within earshot from reading any of NB's books.  I'll bet he dismissed rumors of the affair, when they came before him, as malicious inventions.  Then he finds out that AR never told him the full story?  And he's the officially anointed (whatever exactly that means), and the heir to her estate?  That's got to hurt.

Leonard Peikoff has surely read Atlas Shrugged many times more than I have, so the significance of Eddie Willers can't have been lost on him.  Eddie was a good friend to both Dagny Taggart and Francisco d'Anconia, from childhood, yet they hid their affair from him (when none were yet out of their teens).  There are multiple meanings to anything like this in a work of fiction--but one of them, I think, is to clue the reader, early on, in no uncertain terms, that Eddie is not cut out to be a Prime Mover.  (I won't carry the analogy further than that; I don't mean to imply that Leonard Peikoff was secretly in love with Ayn Rand, as Eddie was with Dagny).

Less sympathetically, I have to say that the Ayn Rand Institute has developed a fairly sophisticated division of labor, when it comes to dealing with "attackers" or repelling incursions on its perceived turf.  For instance, it's not as though 10 or 15 vied to produce their own negative reviews of The Russian Radical; one or two did that, while no one else came out and contradicted them.  So now the designated reviews can be cited as authoritative, in case anyone ever asks whether TRR truly qualifies as "arbitrary gibberish."

So, yes, the division of labor may be another reason why Peikoff would not have undertaken to refute either of the Brandens' books.

Robert Campbell

Bill,

I certainly take your point that a proper review of Mr. Valliant's book (especially after so much has already been written about it) would require major homework.

I haven't attempted a full-fledged review of the book, and probably won't.  I put a lot of labor in just developing a critique of PARC on one issue: Mr. Valliant's assertions that Ayn Rand wasn't jealous of Patrecia Scott.

And participating on message boards, even when they exhibit a higher light-to-heat ratio than normally prevails here, is not particularly compatible with deep study and reflection--about Objectivism or about anything else.

Robert Campbell

Bill,

Your background and your breadth or reading is certainly impressive, and my advice is then unnecessary in your case. Sounds as if you have a carefully thought out program. J.M. Roberts's one volume history of the world is great. I've read a number of world histories and find his the best at capturing the essentials, the broad trends that move through history.

Phil

(I'll simply ignore Diana's negative personal comments directed at me: "That sound you hear is Bill Perry stomping all over Phil Coates' yet-again-condescending advice.")

William,

Thank you for your compliments on my project and other of my posts.

I think your point about the vagueness of some of my statements, and others in the responses is well taken. Your first two examples were my statements. I don't recall every name of everyone who called PARC a legal brief, or an indictment. But I do recall that Wendy McElroy referred to PARC as a legal brief here:

http://www.lewrockwell.com/mcelroy/mcelroy80.html

Some of the criticism of Valliant for behaving as a prosecutor was in private conversations. But the worst example is when David Brown went on at the greatest length about what a prosecutorial nitpicker Valliant is here:

http://www.free-market.net/books-n-stuff/book-beat/ayn-rand-on-nb.html

I don't fully understand the next part of your post. I set out to discuss one aspect of the book. When you ask if this is "Best in Show" I'd have to say yes. Of the four books (counting two by Nathaniel Branden) it is best in show. Unfortunately that is damning Valliant with faint praise. But I can answer that it has hit the mark. Your conflation of what I consider to be Valliant's closing argument with a verdict is misplaced. He has defended himself on internet forums a number of times. (I haven't been counting.)

I don't think that we should drag the witches to the nearest pond and drown them. Revocation of status as martyrs is appropriate though.

As for the italicized portion of your response that appears after the picture, I have no earthly idea what relation it has to the matters under discussion.

Bill

Robert:

~~ "[Rand] apparently counted on [NB and BB] to keep the affair secret even after excoriating them in public for reasons not fully specified, and telling her followers to shun them." --- I'm not aware of where she did the latter. Could you explicate? Re keeping the affair secret (ie: not calling the National Enquirer or some equivalent), what and why she expected such from BB I have no idea, but, she supposedly answered THAT to someone (NB? Patrecia? I'm not one for re-reading gossip) that she expected such non-gossipping as 'the gentlemanly thing to do.' Clearly, she overestimated a character trait. --- As for "...for reasons not fully specified...", this can only be taken to mean as not advertising their affair. In her "To Whom It May Concern", methinks too many are overlooking the very meaning of the title itself. Their affair concerned none of their followers/antagonists THEN...or NOW (beyond gossip-necessities of some). It was THEIRS...not OURS.

~~ Re Piekoff's 'reluctance to publish his own defense of [Rand] against NB and BB'...Cripes. I've had a prob with Piekoff's 'overseeing'-style of ARI (audio-'brushing', Reismann, Sciabarra, etc) but, Bob, you're pushing things here. You've got some really worthwhile criticisms of ARI (which they should pay attention to and change), but then, you throw in stuff like this. WHY THE HELL SHOULD HE...HAVE? --- You ask about 'defense'...hmmm...well, was there an 'attack' ? If so, what 'attacks' should have been 'defended'? This IS a bit different than talking about mere 'critiques', correct? In which case, a critique, if flawed, definitely requires a critique OF the (mere?) 'critique.' However, you specify that you see NB's and BB's 'memoirs' as something needing a 'defense.' Correct me if I'm wrong, but...someone came along and did-just-THAT, no? Someone more 'prosecutorial'-oriented I'd say, than Piekoff. Hmmm...but, Piekoff 'allowed' such; so, which is it? Piekoff be damned for not doing it himself early enough, or, Piekoff be damned for allowing a sycophant to do such? Either way, Piekoff gets the pie-in-the-face, it seems. This is not playing nice.

~~ *I*ll give a 'defense': My closest experience with her was as an admirer sitting on the stage on last-minute folding-chairs-brought-in at the FHF (too many attendees that lecture for the auditorium) and applauding her as she came on stage for the lecture. Don't remember the lecture, but, it included some little girl who asked some question in the later Q&A, and Rand responded to her "Don't let it go". Anyone there will remember the situation; mucho applause for Rand's response re whatever the girl asked. However, at the beginning, when Rand approached the stage, she looked at *me* and to this day all I can think of for the proper word was 'glared' if not 'scowled'...as if she was thinking "What in the world is HE doing here?" It wasn't 'till WAY later I discovered that she had a 'thing' about male facial-hair. I had an equivalent of a Van-Dyke. I understand and accept the bias she had (I still got the thing, for what that's worth.) --- Now I've read pretty well all (post PAR and JD) the latest National Enquirer gossip on other forums about Rand's rudeness...to SOME people (and, the term 'rude' I never ran across, but, that's the strongest *I*'d call what she sometimes was). Rudeness which is never debated, nor even discussed, as to whether or not it may have been (for whatever 'psychologized' reason), 'deserved'; it's the non-deserving presumption which is always and ONLY 'psychologized'...by those who need to psychologize her psychologizing. Most argue her (can we talk?) occasional rudeness as obviously showing nothing BUT 'anger', ergo, she was always angry (except with sycophants, of course; that's presumed off the bat). Excuse me while I barf.

~~ Methinks you're overdoing this 'Rand was only human, not some goddess that deserves worship' thing...and helping those who have clearly tried to stress this attitude about her ABOVE what...we-OWE-her-memory.

~~ Rand was not Ms. GALT. She was not Ms. Roark. (well, maybe Dominique 'in a bad mood', but...when did Howard allow himself (repressive that he was) to wallow 'in a bad mood'?)  --- She was Ms. Cameron. --- Anybody remember Henry Cameron, and how and why Roark saw him as Henry should have been seen? And, how Roark dealt with him? Irascible Henry: wonder how many personality-'flaws' Roark looked for in him? (...and, how many Toohey looked for, and, spelled out in his columns?)

LLAP
J:D/Rowlf

I enjoy reading Bill Perry's contributions, and am impressed by the quest he has set for himself on sabbatical, and am appreciative of his entire angle and style of inquiry -- yet I am struck by the references in his blog entry and in subsequent comments:

-- "some people"

-- "various critics"

-- "many people"

-- "Some people"

-- "others"

-- "some folks"

-- "the tolerationists"

-- "they"

-- "their friendships"

-- "they put up 'rubbish'"

This is weak. Not to put too fine a point on it, but why not name the folks and provide a smidge of context?

WSS

[I appreciate Bill's observation that a prosecutorial document can be a fine fine ethical and truth-divining document, a worthy thing, a good thing. Of course it can. Which begs the question, is this an examplar of all that is good and worthy, this instance? Has it hit the mark this very time? Is this a Best in Show?

In any case, we should also observe that something still remains to be done once the Crown has its say . . . there is usually time for all involved to have a good long think before the verdict comes down, witnesses, accused, Crown and defence. But such is our quirky law tradition which insists that an impartial arbiter issue a binding opinion. Whatever his or her name might be . . .

So, final arguments and then, I sorta forget, um, well, maybe the Crown prosecutor posts a verdict over 390 times on internet forums?

So, it feels a little creepy to get the impression that the only thing to do after Valliant's closing argument is to drag the witches to the nearest pond and thoroughly drown them. This is O-ist ick writ large]

Polichinelle

-- for those Guignol fanatics, a cheery little snippet from the Gideon Webster article I shoulda linked to in an earlier drunkart mountain-boy screed. This is so French it makes my teeth ache:

Méténier was a wholehearted subscriber to the Naturalists' artistic philosophy, and the first plays to be staged at the tiny theatre on Montmartre's rue Chaptal were vaudeville adaptations of faits divers, short, graphic accounts of violent crime reported on the front pages of Parisian newspapers. It is therefore a further irony that the symbol Méténier chose to represent his repertory company stems from an altogether different theatrical tradition; Guignol is a stock character from French puppet theatre akin to Mr. Punch or Polichinelle. Méténier's theatre was to be a Grand Guignol, a puppet-show intended for adults rather than children, where the characters were live performers.

In 1898 the flamboyant impresario Max Maurey took over from Méténier, and the Grand Guignol entered its golden age. The "slice of life" dramatizations of faits divers were replaced by what became known as "slice of death" (tranche de mort) theatre, and Maurey dedicated himself to the realistic representation of acts of unimaginable horror. Murder, rape, mutilation, and torture were bread and butter to the Grand Guignol, which quickly filled the gap that had been left in Parisian entertainment by the discontinuance of public executions.

André de Lorde, known as "The Prince of Terror," joined the Grand Guignol as Principal Playwright in 1901. In the twenty-five years he stayed with the company, de Lorde wrote over one hundred plays of fear and horror and was almost single-handedly responsible for the Grand Guignol's ascension from a local sensation to a place of international pilgrimage. His plays may now seem laughably overwritten and ill-conceived, but de Lorde always claimed that he, of all playwrights, best understood the Aristotelean concept of catharsis -- it is certainly true that each of his texts successfully purged its audience with pity and fear, more often than not physically as well as emotionally.
Full article

BONUS material: cool Quicktime video.

... is Bill Perry stomping all over Phil Coates' yet-again-condescending advice. (Holy librarian, Bill, you're darn well-read!)

-- Diana Hsieh
diana@dianahsieh.com
NoodleFood

Phil,

I am substantially better read in history than I am in philosophy. I have read Roberts and rely on his book as my one volume reference. I read a few history books every year. My most recent history book was Lord Kinross’ book about the Ottoman Turks.

I did a substantial amount of reading about and study of psychology when I was trying a string of murder-insanity cases. I am much more knowledgeable about aberrant psychology, but am familiar with the field in general. I am interested in learning more about cognitive science. I might be a little weak on developmental psychology though. If something comes up as an issue for me I’d know where to look.

I’m also very familiar with economics. I have a solid grounding in the Austrian, monetarist, and public choice schools. I was fed some Keynes and Marx in college as well. I’ve read _Das Kapital_ in its entirety. I’ve also read a lot of Lenin.

While I haven’t read all of classic literature, I’ve read Homer, and Shakespeare (everything in detail when I was a drama major as an undergraduate. I mean I’ve read EVERY play. I used to be able to recite Lear since I prompted it.) I’ve read other classics too numerous to mention, but I’ll throw in all of Austen including that wretched gothic thing.

I’ve read the King James Bible, the Koran, and the book of Mormon. That is in their entirety, front to back cover. I’ve read a lot about those religions and others.

Those are just some of the areas I've explored.

I’m 58 years old. With the exception of my first year of law school I’ve read over a 100 books a year since I was a child. Some were for entertainment. Most were for my education. I’m fully capable of finding sources when I come across something that troubles me or interests me.

I thought that I did not have a sufficient grounding in philosophy to tackle the task of obtaining a deeper understanding of Objectivism. So I worked through a logic text, and an introductory textbook. Then I read Copleston in its entirety. I finished the ninth volume yesterday. I wouldn’t consider my level of knowledge about philosophy to be at the graduate level. (With the exception of my knowledge of Ortega which is both broad and deep.) I’d consider it more at the upper division undergraduate level.

My project is more than understanding toleration. In fact what I wrote about it in my “Announcement” was, ”I may further refine my position about judgment. It is pretty well developed at this point given my past background as a prosecutor, defense attorney, and judge. I want to clarify it in writing.” I am more interested in the other questions I listed.

I'm not claiming "mastery", but I think I have enough background to do what I'm going to do. That is to re-examine the Objectivist corpus, explore a lot of offerings by ARI intellectuals that I've neglected, and try to come to some conclusions about the questions I raised.

Bill

Bill, if I understood correctly, you said your intensive or exclusive study for a year would be philosophy, the history of philosophy, and Objectivism. That sounds like the course of study for a philosophy graduate student. If you are hoping to gain from it a better understanding of the issues surrounding toleration and how to judge people and movement issues in Objectivism, those fields are not enough. One of the factors which made Ayn Rand better able to do philosophy later on was taking history course after history course in her school years. I have met few people as rationalistic and with as poor a grasp of how to -apply- Objectivism as so many philosophy graduate students over the years. (Unless they took time off and studied other things, they have been marched through and rushed through too narrow an academic curriculum.)

Philosophy is highly abstract, general, and sweeping. A good approach is to take a dose of philosophy, then read a history book or developmental psychology or another topic in the humanities or social sciences. Allow time to mull them over, let them sink in, and think about how they integrate. Then go back to philosophy. But to force feed only philosophy as though all of reality were only about philosophy or all the answers to psychological and political and how-to-spread-ideas issues were to be found in philosophy is a catastrophic error.

One made by too many "serious" Objectivists. [I can recommend a couple excellent one volume world histories from which I learned much more about types of people and how their minds work, about how men and nations act and react, and about understanding and judging people as I did from philosophy.]

I would go so far as to say that an Objectivist without a deep and thorough grounding in history (which our schools have seldom provided) has no business trying to call himself a philosopher. It's like being eager to try to do calculus without having mastered arithmetic.

(Now, it's possible you have already thoroughly mastered those other subjects, in which case you are one of the very few Oists I've met who have done so and, if so, never mind )

Frankly, I think that Nathaniel waited until after Ayn died to publish his memoir because he didn't want to publish before Barbara, giving him the last word, so to say. And he had a lot of other things on the table book-wise. He published three books in the period from the very late 60s to the very early 70s. Then nothing until "The Psychology of Romantic Love" in 1980 which hit the bookstores almost three years after Patrecia's tragic death. Then came an avalanche of books, but Ayn had only two years to live. He gave his reason for not publishing much in the 70s as he was on a very steep learning curve in psychology. I also think he was so much in love with his actress wife that he was more focused on acting and the theater, writing his play "At the Heights" in 1972. Whether he would have delayed his memoir until after Ayn died is problematical, but Barbara wasn't going to wait with the biography and Ayn knew she was doing it before she died.

--Brant

But, Robert, the Brandens did publish about the affair during AR's lifetime - at least to the extent of mentioning it as the purported reason for the break (which of course we now know was an outrageous lie, one of many emanating from them).

More importantly, Ayn Rand was clearly not "counting on" anything in regard to them. If she had been concerned about it, she would not have made the break so public. There are any number of ways someone else - someone not Ayn Rand - might have attempted to smooth over their differences or cover it up, in short to have "faked reality", for the sake of "public opinion".

As for Leonard Peikoff, it is clear that he did not think that issue - or for that matter anything to do with the Brandens - was deserving of much, if any, attention. I can well imagine how much James Valliant, as he has told us, had to "twist his arm" to get his support for PARC. Objectivists aren't that interested in the topic. For example it has never come up on HBL. It is rarely discussed on other Objectivist forums. It is only TOCers, et al who constantly obsess about it. I assume to fulfill their neverending need to demonstrate to themselves and others that they are not "true believers" - and also to reassure themselves that since if even Ayn Rand wasn't perfect, surely no one should expect them to be either.

Brant,

This is probably going to be it as far as substantive posts before I go on my "sabbatical." I will respond to anything on my blog threads up until May 1. It is unlikely that I will post anything during the time off. One of the important aspects of what I'm attempting is to get away from the noise of the discussion lists and focus on gaining a deeper understanding of Objectivism.

Bill

Robert,

I'm not going to discuss the content of PARC as opposed to PAR and Judgment Day or MYWAR. That has been done extensively on this site and elsewhere. Frankly it becomes like doing scholarship. You need to read everything that has been written about it. Although I've read a fair amount of it, I'd have to reread all of it carefully. And I'd have to go back through all four books. I don't have the time or inclination for that project. I wrote this entry because it offers a different perspective than what has been written previously.

I've been present twice when Nathaniel Branden has been asked why he waited until after Rand's death to publish. Both times he got this amazing expression on his face. I would describe it as "you cannot be serious." I think that he feared the wrath of Rand. You and I differ about the righteousness of that wrath.

I think that part of the reason Peikoff did not respond was that he did not want to dignify the books with a response. I'm unwilling to speculate about any of his other reasons.

Bill

I was just restating what Bill said because I am curious to read more from him about PARC before he goes on sabatical. I hope he decides to continue making occasional posts here on this and other subjects in spite of his stated intentions for the coming year. The tolerationists aren't really reviewing PARC I suspect because they can't honestly deal with the content and don't want to eviscerate their friendships with the Brandens. Instead they put up "rubbish."

--Brant