Psychological Visibility


Recommended Posts

Is anyone familiar with a new book from the Ayn Rand Bookstore? It is Exploring the Psychological Visibility Principle

Description at the Bookstore's site:

By Ellen Kenner

Full title: Exploring the Psychological Visibility Principle as Illustrated in Atlas Shrugged

Why is it sometimes difficult to express heartfelt sentiments to those we value? While some do so naturally, others repress their true feelings or offer insincere praise that is driven by duty rather than by values.

Throughout Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand provides us with memorable examples of tenderness and admiration. Such visibility, expressed in subtle and eloquent words and actions, nourishes relationships and is an act of justice. In contrast, feeling invisible or misunderstood by those who matter (a spouse, a child, a friend, an employer) can cause agony. Resentments escalate and good relationships deteriorate.

Using illustrative examples from Atlas Shrugged and exercises, this course explores:

  • Why giving and receiving proper visibility is essential for your happiness
  • Altruism's devastating effect on visibility
  • Self-visibility: egoistic premises and breaking the habit of humility
  • How to effectively express admiration to those you value
  • Genuine forgiveness vs. false forgiveness
  • How to deal with the "looters-in-spirit": how to deal with phony visibility or unjust invisibility
  • Pseudo-visibility (e.g., "God understands me")

(Audio CD; 6-CD set; 4 hrs., 16 min., with Q & A)

If you are familiar with the book - do you know if she gives Nathaniel's The Psychology of Romantic Love et al credit for his analysis of psychological visibility?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Is anyone familiar with a new book from the Ayn Rand Bookstore? It is Exploring the Psychological Visibility Principle

Description at the Bookstore's site:

By Ellen Kenner

Full title: Exploring the Psychological Visibility Principle as Illustrated in Atlas Shrugged

Why is it sometimes difficult to express heartfelt sentiments to those we value? While some do so naturally, others repress their true feelings or offer insincere praise that is driven by duty rather than by values.

Throughout Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand provides us with memorable examples of tenderness and admiration. Such visibility, expressed in subtle and eloquent words and actions, nourishes relationships and is an act of justice. In contrast, feeling invisible or misunderstood by those who matter (a spouse, a child, a friend, an employer) can cause agony. Resentments escalate and good relationships deteriorate.

Using illustrative examples from Atlas Shrugged and exercises, this course explores:

  • Why giving and receiving proper visibility is essential for your happiness
  • Altruism's devastating effect on visibility
  • Self-visibility: egoistic premises and breaking the habit of humility
  • How to effectively express admiration to those you value
  • Genuine forgiveness vs. false forgiveness
  • How to deal with the "looters-in-spirit": how to deal with phony visibility or unjust invisibility
  • Pseudo-visibility (e.g., "God understands me")

(Audio CD; 6-CD set; 4 hrs., 16 min., with Q & A)

If you are familiar with the book - do you know if she gives Nathaniel's The Psychology of Romantic Love et al credit for his analysis of psychological visibility?

I know nothing about this new book, but I was telling Nathaniel about psychological visibility's relation to romantic love nearly thirty years ago: it was more basic and if you referenced it the love would pretty much take care of itself, especially the problems seemingly apropos to romantic love. This was in the context of one of his Intensives. I forget if his book had come out yet. It came out in the winter of 1980, three years after his very first Intensive, Washington, D.C., Feb. 1977. That was a warm-up for the first official one in Los Angeles in March, after which he lost his wife in a tragic drowning accident. While it's terribly important there is no need to write a whole book about it. I'd give it 20 pages of typescript, max. And if this is another of those completely ignore NB books, the author can go chuck it.

--Brant

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Is anyone familiar with a new book from the Ayn Rand Bookstore? It is Exploring the Psychological Visibility Principle

Description at the Bookstore's site:

By Ellen Kenner

Full title: Exploring the Psychological Visibility Principle as Illustrated in Atlas Shrugged

Why is it sometimes difficult to express heartfelt sentiments to those we value? While some do so naturally, others repress their true feelings or offer insincere praise that is driven by duty rather than by values.

Throughout Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand provides us with memorable examples of tenderness and admiration. Such visibility, expressed in subtle and eloquent words and actions, nourishes relationships and is an act of justice. In contrast, feeling invisible or misunderstood by those who matter (a spouse, a child, a friend, an employer) can cause agony. Resentments escalate and good relationships deteriorate.

Using illustrative examples from Atlas Shrugged and exercises, this course explores:

  • Why giving and receiving proper visibility is essential for your happiness
  • Altruism's devastating effect on visibility
  • Self-visibility: egoistic premises and breaking the habit of humility
  • How to effectively express admiration to those you value
  • Genuine forgiveness vs. false forgiveness
  • How to deal with the "looters-in-spirit": how to deal with phony visibility or unjust invisibility
  • Pseudo-visibility (e.g., "God understands me")

(Audio CD; 6-CD set; 4 hrs., 16 min., with Q & A)

If you are familiar with the book - do you know if she gives Nathaniel's The Psychology of Romantic Love et al credit for his analysis of psychological visibility?

Mary,

I am not familiar with the recorded lectures (it's a CD set, not a book) of Dr. Kenner that you reference. She has been a frequent lecturer at ARI sponsored or sanctioned events, such as their OCON summer conference. Since she is an ARIan devotee, I can just about guarantee that she does not mention Nathaniel Branden's earlier writings and lectures on the topic of psychological visibility, going back to NBI in the 1960's. It was discussed at some length in his NBI courses, including Principles of Objectivist Psychology (the basis for his later book, The Psychology of Self-Esteem, 1969) and The Psychology of Romantic Love (later a recorded lecture set from Academic Associates and then extensively reorganized for his book of the same title.

Generally, an ARI lecturer never gives credit to Nathaniel Branden or Barbara Branden for any of their contributions to the literature of Objectivism, as they are considered to be persona non grata. To do so, would bring down upon them the wrath of Leonard and their being dropped from participating in any subsequent ARI-sanctioned conferences and their recorded lectures or books not being offered through ARI. Of course, this mis- or non-attribution of credit towards the Brandens, raises issues about the honesty and integrity of ARIan lecturers.

The concept of psychological visibility is not original to Objectivism - it is present in many earlier discussions of romantic love by psychologists although it may be called by a different term. However, the central role that it plays in the Objectvist psychology of sex, and its philosophical meaning, has not been emphasized to the same degree, by other psycholgists prior to Rand and Branden.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Using illustrative examples from Atlas Shrugged and exercises, this course explores:

  • Why giving and receiving proper visibility is essential for your happiness
  • Altruism's devastating effect on visibility
  • Self-visibility: egoistic premises and breaking the habit of humility
  • How to effectively express admiration to those you value
  • Genuine forgiveness vs. false forgiveness
  • How to deal with the "looters-in-spirit": how to deal with phony visibility or unjust invisibility
  • Pseudo-visibility (e.g., "God understands me")

One bullet point was obviously left out:
  • How making Nathaniel Branden invisible will make you more visible to ARI.

Ghs

  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

The concept of psychological visibility is not original to Objectivism - it is present in many earlier discussions of romantic love by psychologists although it may be called by a different term. However, the central role that it plays in the Objectvist psychology of sex, and its philosophical meaning, has not been emphasized to the same degree, by other psycholgists prior to Rand and Branden.

I first heard Branden discussing this topic in his "Objectivist Psychology" course in 1966. There was an article about it in The Objectivist around the same time. He originally called it "The Muttnik Principle," because he discovered it while playing with his dog, Muttnik. It is "the experience of self-awareness that results from perceiving your self as an objective existent via interaction with the consciousness of other living entities." I have a considerable background in psychology, and do not recall ever reading earlier discussions of such a principle by other psychologists. There were similar ideas in the history of psychology, such as Aristotle's statement that a friend was, in essence, another self. But, to my knowledge, no prior theorist identified the underlying principle involved; i.e., that while we normally experience ourselves as pure conscious process, other minds can provide us with a unique kind of psychological mirror.

I would be interested to know where you saw this in earlier discussions of romantic love.

I have no doubt that Ellen Kenner gives Branden zero credit for the discovery of this principle. Once again, the True Believers wrap themselves in a cloak of moral purity while flagrantly rewriting history in the grand Stalinist tradition. To me, this demonstrates a level of hypocrisy and corruption that is beneath contempt.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The concept of psychological visibility is not original to Objectivism - it is present in many earlier discussions of romantic love by psychologists although it may be called by a different term. However, the central role that it plays in the Objectvist psychology of sex, and its philosophical meaning, has not been emphasized to the same degree, by other psycholgists prior to Rand and Branden.

I first heard Branden discussing this topic in his "Objectivist Psychology" course in 1966. There was an article about it in The Objectivist around the same time. He originally called it "The Muttnik Principle," because he discovered it while playing with his dog, Muttnik. It is "the experience of self-awareness that results from perceiving your self as an objective existent via interaction with the consciousness of other living entities." I have a considerable background in psychology, and do not recall ever reading earlier discussions of such a principle by other psychologists. There were similar ideas in the history of psychology, such as Aristotle's statement that a friend was, in essence, another self. But, to my knowledge, no prior theorist identified the underlying principle involved; i.e., that while we normally experience ourselves as pure conscious process, other minds can provide us with a unique kind of psychological mirror.

I would be interested to know where you saw this in earlier discussions of romantic love.

I have no doubt that Ellen Kenner gives Branden zero credit for the discovery of this principle. Once again, the True Believers wrap themselves in a cloak of moral purity while flagrantly rewriting history in the grand Stalinist tradition. To me, this demonstrates a level of hypocrisy and corruption that is beneath contempt.

A discussion of the concept of psychological visibility was presented in the lecture on "The psychology of sex," in the NBI lecture series, Basic Principles of Objectivism in the 1960s (and can now be found in print, in Branden's The Vision of Ayn Rand: The Basic Principles of Objectivism, Chapter 16, see especially, p. 416), although that term is not used, probably because the material in the lecture was written before 1966. A similar discussion of the concept, without using that term, is in his article, "The Psychology of Pleasure," published first in The Objectivist Newsletter and included as a chapter in Rand's The Virtue of Selfishness (1964).

The discussion of "the Muttnick Principle," which he later more elegantly termed "psychological visibility," is presented in some detail in his The Psychology of Self-Esteem (1970), which is a reworking of material presented in The Objectivist Newsletter and the NBI course on Objectivist Psychology, also from the 1960s.

I do not have an NBI brochure describing the contents of Branden's course on The Psychology of Romantic Love, which was presented sometime after 1965(a reference to its first date of presentation could probably be found in the "Objectivist Calendar" notices that appeared in the back of The Objectivist). However, I do have the Academic Associates brochure describing the contents of their album set, "Nathaniel Branden Lectures on the Psychology of Romantic Love,"(1970) which it describes as a revised and expanded version of the earlier NBI course. As far as I can tell, the titles and subject material of the AA course remain identical to its NBI predescessor. Two of these lectures specifically discuss psychological visibility: In Lecture 9, "The Goals of a Romantic Relationship," a subtitle is "Communicating psychological visibility:" and Lecture 10 is entitled, "The Failure to Project Psychological Visibility." It is discussed again in Branden's book, The Psychology of Romantic Love (1980), which contains some of the same material as the recorded AA course, but in a considerably reorganized manner. (IMO, the recorded course, which is still available as a CD set, is superior).

Trying to avoid an unfortunate habit of some Objectivists of attempting to critically review and condemn a book or other material that they have not yet read (!), I suppose that I should clarify that I have not heard Dr. Kenner's lecture and that therefore I cannot say with certainty that she does not give credit to Nathaniel Branden for the formulation of the concept of psychological visibility. So, I will merely say that, historically, neither Nathaniel Branden nor Barbara Branden have been given credit for their contributions to Objectivism by ARIan presenters, or in publications that are authorized by ARI. So,...if Dr. Kenner has shown the professional integrity/intestinal fortitude to give due credit to Nathaniel Branden, it would signal a major change in ARI policy. This would certainly be a positive development and would raise the stature of ARI in the academic community, and everywhere else, for that matter. But, that's not likely at this point.

Edited by Jerry Biggers
Link to comment
Share on other sites

By Ellen Kenner

Full title: Exploring the Psychological Visibility Principle as Illustrated in Atlas Shrugged

She has a free podcast you can get through itunes, I’ve heard one or two episodes, they didn’t do a thing for me.

If you are familiar with the book - do you know if she gives Nathaniel's The Psychology of Romantic Love et al credit for his analysis of psychological visibility?

Nope, but seen one of these lately?

pigfly.gif

I call this contextual certainty.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Here's a thought: somebody actually buy and listen to the first hour of the fucking lecture and -then- tell us.

Edited by Philip Coates
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Here's a thought: somebody actually buy and listen to the first hour of the fucking lecture and -then- tell us.

Oooh, language! Why don't you check out some of her podcasts?

http://www.drkenner.com/radio_show.html

http://www.drkenner.com/archive1.xml

I'm confident it won't take you long to achieve contextual certainty on this question.

You don't need to hear every one of Peikoff's podcasts to have certainty that nowhere therein does he, as an example, endorse Barbara Branden's book. And yes, Kenner is that Orthodox.

Please go on though, you'll score big against me, your bitter foe, when you find it.

Mwuhaha!!!

Actually, why not just call her when she's on live radio?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

> Why don't you check out some of her podcasts? [ND]

Because I'm not the one making the claim that she didn't give credit to Branden.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

> And yes, Kenner is that Orthodox.

It's stupid to say that because someone agrees completely with Objectivism that they would therefore with absolute certainty not give credit to someone for their original ideas or that they would kowtow to ARI on every issue.

You also ought to learn what 'contextual' certainty means; it doesn't mean an educated guess. Much higher standard.

ND, I could tutor you on epistemology but I warn you that my rates are high for rebellious and snarky students.... :P

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The concept of psychological visibility is not original to Objectivism - it is present in many earlier discussions of romantic love by psychologists although it may be called by a different term. However, the central role that it plays in the Objectvist psychology of sex, and its philosophical meaning, has not been emphasized to the same degree, by other psycholgists prior to Rand and Branden.

I first heard Branden discussing this topic in his "Objectivist Psychology" course in 1966.

I would be interested to know where you saw this in earlier discussions of romantic love.

A discussion of the concept of psychological visibility was presented in the lecture on "The psychology of sex," in the NBI lecture series, Basic Principles of Objectivism in the 1960s (and can now be found in print, in Branden's The Vision of Ayn Rand: The Basic Principles of Objectivism, Chapter 16, see especially, p. 416), although that term is not used, probably because the material in the lecture was written before 1966. A similar discussion of the concept, without using that term, is in his article, "The Psychology of Pleasure," published first in The Objectivist Newsletter and included as a chapter in Rand's The Virtue of Selfishness (1964).

The discussion of "the Muttnick Principle," which he later more elegantly termed "psychological visibility," is presented in some detail in his The Psychology of Self-Esteem (1970), which is a reworking of material presented in The Objectivist Newsletter and the NBI course on Objectivist Psychology, also from the 1960s.

I do not have an NBI brochure describing the contents of Branden's course on The Psychology of Romantic Love, which was presented sometime after 1965(a reference to its first date of presentation could probably be found in the "Objectivist Calendar" notices that appeared in the back of The Objectivist). However, I do have the Academic Associates brochure describing the contents of their album set, "Nathaniel Branden Lectures on the Psychology of Romantic Love,"(1970) which it describes as a revised and expanded version of the earlier NBI course. As far as I can tell, the titles and subject material of the AA course remain identical to its NBI predescessor. Two of these lectures specifically discuss psychological visibility: In Lecture 9, "The Goals of a Romantic Relationship," a subtitle is "Communicating psychological visibility:" and Lecture 10 is entitled, "The Failure to Project Psychological Visibility." It is discussed again in Branden's book, The Psychology of Romantic Love (1980), which contains some of the same material as the recorded AA course, but in a considerably reorganized manner. (IMO, the recorded course, which is still available as a CD set, is superior).

Jerry,

Thank you for the chronology of Branden's discussions of this topic. I had forgotten that NB had referenced this idea in his "Basic Principles of Objectivism" course. But your first post stated that the concept of psychological visibility was not original with Objectivism. I was surprised by that statement and wanted to know where you had seen it (using different terminology) prior to Branden. Again, as I said previously, the only prior mention of anything comparable to the 'psychological mirror' concept that I am aware of was Aristotle's description of a friend as 'another self.'

I think Branden should be credited with having originated this principle, but I am open to revising that judgment based on any new evidence you can provide.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Here's a thought: somebody actually buy and listen to the first hour of the fucking lecture and -then- tell us.

A passage from My Years with Ayn Rand:

I telephoned Allan Blumenthal (in August/September of 1968) and told him, “Here is what is coming next. I want to go on record as saying this now—before it begins. Ayn will soon be saying, and then the rest of you will be saying, that I never originated anything, never contributed anything, that every idea of mine is really Ayn’s.”

Allan answered, “Don’t be paranoiac, Nathan. That’s ridiculous. No one has ever denied that you’re a clever fellow.”

I was not yet impervious to shock. I said, “A what? A ‘clever fellow’? Is that what the party line—meaning Ayn—now says I am. I’m too late for a prediction, then. The process of rewriting history has already begun.”

Years later, as the new ‘leader’ of the Objectivist movement, Leonard Peikoff would do everything possible to make Ayn’s admirers forget that Nathaniel Branden Institute—or Nathaniel Branden—had ever existed or had any significance in Ayn’s life.

My Years with Ayn Rand, Nathaniel Branden (p. 354)

Let me get this straight now. We are supposed to imagine that, in 2010, perhaps Peikoff suddenly decided he and Ayn had been unfair to Branden. He picks up the phone and calls Ellen Kenner. “Ellen,” he says, “let’s do the right thing and acknowledge that Ayn got the principle of psychological visibility from Branden and then used it in Atlas Shrugged. No, I won’t excommunicate you for saying that. I promise.”

What’s next? Peikoff calls Branden and invites him to dinner at his home.

Hey! It could happen. (Well, believe it or not, there are apparently some people who think it could happen.)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

ND, I could tutor you on epistemology but I warn you that my rates are high for rebellious and snarky students.... :P

Phil, you’re such an idiot, it’s pointless to belabour it. And soooo boring. Get a life.

PicardInsult.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

hmmmm. Looks like we have here a classic example of psychological invisibility.

Stop fighting, guys.

Doctor’s pledge: I henceforth won’t chase Phil from thread to thread making repetitive, ignorant, schoolmarmish comments about his posts. True, this isn’t at all a change of policy, but at least now it’s spelled out.

Notice this post, also from yesterday. I offer it as evidence of how I try to be nice to Phil. Alas, no good deed…

FWIW, here's a picture of Laika, aka Muttnik, the first dog in space, and presumably where Dr. Branden got the name for his dog and hence the principle.

laika.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks, Mary Lee Harsha, for bringing this lecture to attention. I had not known about it.

I have some notes on psychological mirroring in The Fountainhead here.

A couple more:

—Wynand and Dominique—

“She sat at her dressing-table. He came in and stood leaning against the wall beside her. He looked at her hands, at her naked shoulders, but she felt as if he did not see her; he was looking at something greater than the beauty of her body, greater than his love for her; he was looking at himself—and this, she knew, was the one incomparable tribute (GW IX 537–38).

—Roark the morning after first time with Dominique—

“In some unstated way, last night had been what building was to him; in some quality of reaction within him, in what it gave to his consciousness of existence” (ET II 231–32).

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I do not mean to insinuate that Nathaniel Branden added nothing new to Rand’s 1943 thoughts on psychological mirroring in romantic, sexual love. I did appreciate his essay developing this idea in The Objectivist. I was sure he was mistaken in his denial therein of the possibility of romantic love between persons of the same sex. I chalked it up to his (and other psychologists’) personal lack of experience in homosexual relations. I take as a voice of experience my lover of these last fourteen years; he was married about ten years, the offspring look suspiciously like him; he knows what’s possible.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It's stupid to say that because someone agrees completely with Objectivism that they would therefore with absolute certainty not give credit to someone for their original ideas or that they would kowtow to ARI on every issue.

The point is not that she agrees completely with Objectivism (if she does), but that she's fully endorsed by ARI, as is her book. That means that the odds that the book contains a positive reference to Nathaniel Branden are smaller than that we'll discover a manuscript by Rand in which she says that altruism isn't such a bad idea after all.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Subject: Facts First, Gossip or Accusation Second

> she's fully endorsed by ARI, as is her book. That means that the odds that the book contains a positive reference to Nathaniel Branden are small

How do you know this? Just because some -past- writers/lecturers sold by the Ayn Rand Bookstore have not even mentioned Branden?

Have -all- of those intellectuals done this?

Have you actually researched this?

The first thing you would need to do research is a pretty clear list of the principles that Peikoff, Binswanger, Schwartz, and decades later Ellen Kenner et al acknowledge as major contributions to which credit is *due morally and in terms of simple honesty* and which Branden or somebody they detest clearly originated, not Rand. I certainly -hope- it's not true that they will ban anyone who does and so no one has. But I don't know whether or not it's true. It's just that you can't simply claim this, urban legend style.

Edited by Philip Coates
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Dennis,

Sorry, I mis-understood your earlier request. I thought you were asking for earlier references on psychological visibity by Branden.

As to my comment that the concept of psychological visibility (but not using that term) was discussed in other psychological literature prior to Branden, I had a dim recollection that I had seen that discussed somewhere. However, I have been unable to locate that reference and I have been unsuccessful in finding references to that concept on Google that do not attribute it to Rand and Branden. To explore further would require, at minimum, reference to books discussing a variety of psychological theories of love. When I get around to it, I will also check Aaron Beck and the Adlerians, who may discuss that concept (although probably not using that term).

But in the absence of evidence, I will have to say that Rand "anticipated" the concept of psychological visibility through descriptions of interactions between her fictional characters in The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, and that Branden named the concept and described it more detail, as well as emphasizing its importance in human relationships, especially romantic love. (By the way, academics often use the term, "anticipated," but I think it is epistemologically incorrect as it implies that somehow the originator of the earlier, immature version of a theory "knew" it would later be elaborated upon by someone else. How? By clairvoyance?).

.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

> But in the absence of evidence, I will have to say that Rand "anticipated" the concept of psychological visibility through descriptions of interactions between her fictional characters in The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, and that Branden named the concept and described it more detail, as well as emphasizing its importance in human relationships, especially romantic love. [Jerry]

Even if Rand anticipated it in that fictional way or if some previous psychologist were to have vaguely mentioned 'mirroring' or the equivalent, when someone like Branden fleshes it out and elaborates on it to such a great degree, someone who does a whole piece or talk on it would, morally and factually, be required to mention all this, to "apportion" credit to the extent that they have knowledge of those multiple sources.

Especially if he were the one to fully identify and name the concept. But if another thinker was ahead of him by a decade or a century, and one is fully cognizant of it, one would need to mention that thinker.

It's always a good idea in discussing almost any meaty intellectual topic to trace and report its history, how it developed.

Oist writers and speakers need to learn that from other writers and thinkers. They sometimes act as if nothing had gone before them.

,,,,,,

By the way, I just bought the Kenner series.

Edited by Philip Coates
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Subject: Facts First, Gossip or Accusation Second

> she's fully endorsed by ARI, as is her book. That means that the odds that the book contains a positive reference to Nathaniel Branden are small

How do you know this? Just because some -past- writers/lecturers sold by the Ayn Rand Bookstore have not even mentioned Branden?

Have -all- of those intellectuals done this?

Have you actually researched this?

The first thing you would need to do research is a pretty clear list of the principles that Peikoff, Binswanger, Schwartz, and decades later Ellen Kenner et al acknowledge as major contributions to which credit is *due morally and in terms of simple honesty* and which Branden or somebody they detest clearly originated, not Rand. I certainly -hope- it's not true that they will ban anyone who does and so no one has. But I don't know whether or not it's true. It's just that you can't simply claim this, urban legend style.

Well, actually, I have researched this. And the airbrushing-out (or the minimization of the role, or the mis-attribution of concepts originated by )of the Brandens by ARIan "scholars" has been documented many times on this website, and elsewhere, such as the recent Burns and Heller. biographies.

On to the specific case of Dr. Kenner and her use of the term, "psychological visibility." Her summary of her lecture is on youtube: www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPo1VYbEj2E

Additionally, the concept is discussed in her 4 part article, "The Rational Basis of Sex," on her website and at capitalismmagazine.com . The identical wording is in an interview by the University of Toronto Objectivist Club, in Q&A format. No.4 is, "What is psychological visibility and how does it relate to sexual desire?" www.drkenner.com/articletrbsex.htm#4 Branden is not mentioned in any of this.

But wait, how about her "list of recommended books and tapes?" www.drkenner.com/reading.htm

She lists ten or so books on "therapy," where she also gives caveats on writers with whom she disagrees philosophically (e.g. cognitive therapists). Guess whose books are not mentioned?

Then she lists 16 books on romance. Guess who is omitted? How about books on "thinking?" Peikoff and Edwin A. Locke are listed. No mention of Barbara Branden's "Principles of Efficient Thinking" And Kelley's Art of Reasoning? Nope, not there either.

Dr. Kenner has a forthcoming book (September 21, 2010): The Selfish Path to Romance: How to Love With Passion and Reason, inspired by Ayn Rand. 384 pages, paperback, Winans Kuenstler Publishing, LLC. List price price: $16.95. Online price: $11.43 from Amazon or BarnesandNoble.com.

Her co-author is Edwin A. Locke (retired professor of managerial psychology. By the way, the name, "Branden," is not listed in any footnote or reference in his several published books on psychology. Maybe he doesn't know anything about the Brandens or their role in Objectivism. Oh, wait, wasn't he the NBI Business Representative for Branden's taped courses in Washington, D.C. in the 1960s?). Now, with 384 pages at their disposal, what do you think the chances are that Drs. Kenner and Locke will give credit where credit is due to the Brandens?

I should add that, after reviewing many of her articles on her website, that she appears to be quite good as a psychologist. I did not see anything that "moral tolerationists" or "Open" Objectivists would disagree with. But, as I said, she should attribute credit where it is due. Leaving out any reference to contributions by the Brandens strikes me as very questionable, ethically. I do not see how this sort of omission can be justified.

Maybe she will include the proper references in her forthcoming book.

Edited by Jerry Biggers
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I should add that, after reviewing many of her articles on her website, that she appears to be quite good as a psychologist. I did not see anything that "moral tolerationists" or "Open" Objectivists would disagree with. But, as I said, she should attribute credit where it is due. Leaving out any reference to contributions by the Brandens strikes me as very questionable, ethically. I do not see how this sort of omission can be justified.

Jerry,

So integrity, honesty and an independent mind are playing second fiddle to petty internal politics?

Giving credit where it's due, the hallmark of justice, becomes selective, or, relative?

Also, the most evasive kind of lie, that of omission, becomes normal practice.

This is worse than the 're-write agenda' Robert exposed.

How can this be perpetrated in the name of Ayn Rand?

Tony

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Smoking Gun

> Leaving out any reference to contributions by the Brandens strikes me as very questionable, ethically. [Jerry Biggers]

It would to me too -- in fact, *much worse* than questionable.

But I'd be a lot more comfortable in drawing this conclusion if I saw a specific list 1,2,3 of the top contributions, the ones not originated by Rand or anyone else a century ago. And which are made a big deal of by specific writers, yet not acknowledged. For example, is 'visibility' the only major original contribution? Was it originated and first fleshed out in the psych literature by Branden?

You mention that some of this has been 'documented' on this website.

No offense, but very often I'm not impressed by the lack of objectivity of some of the people on -either- side of the Branden vs. ARI tong wars, by some of the wild claims of people posting on this website or on Solo or on NoodleFood, etc.

There are people on these sites who will say literally -anything- to 'get' the people they hate.

That's why I always say: I'm from Missouri. Show me. Give me a short list of specifics first. Don't ask me to go back and listen to an hour long tape or read three years worth of posts. (Or take your word for it.)

,,,,,,,

As I said, later this summer I will be listening to six CD's by EK and there ought to be some discussion of the 'history' of the VP - who originated, who developed, etc.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now