Barbara Branden's 50th anniversary tribute to "Atlas"


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***Man, the Evading Animal***

And I'll go one step further (which ought to stir some controversy -- since I am attacking a central psychological view of Ayn Rand and one which most Objectivists have absorbed uncritically from the novels, whether they be old-timers or newbies):

"The apathetic throng

The cowed and the meek

Who see the world's great anguish and its wrong

And dare not speak!"

This was Ayn Rand's view of the masses of men, expressed in each of her novels [the whole world turns that way except for handfuls of men in Atlas] and in dozens of essays as an observation, but never proven:

That they -know- Objectivism or something like it - on some important level - but dare not speak.

Based on a lifetime of my observation of all kinds of people, that is wrong. Stupidity or ignorance or anti-philosophical tendencies? Yes. Massive evasion or immorality? No.

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I am sure Miss Rand knew about Chamberlain's review.

Does anyone know what Leonard Read said about Atlas?

It is worth mentioning that there is no mention of Atlas in The Lady and the Tycoon.

I think the Chamber's review set the pattern for the Right.

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***Man, the Evading Animal***

And I'll go one step further (which ought to stir some controversy -- since I am attacking a central psychological view of Ayn Rand and one which most Objectivists have absorbed uncritically from the novels, whether they be old-timers or newbies):

"The apathetic throng

The cowed and the meek

Who see the world's great anguish and its wrong

And dare not speak!"

This was Ayn Rand's view of the masses of men, expressed in each of her novels [the whole world turns that way except for handfuls of men in Atlas] and in dozens of essays as an observation, but never proven:

That they -know- Objectivism or something like it - on some important level - but dare not speak.

Based on a lifetime of my observation of all kinds of people, that is wrong. Stupidity or ignorance or anti-philosophical tendencies? Yes. Massive evasion or immorality? No.

It's easy to see "the world's great anguish and its wrong," but hard to understand it and do anything about it. That quote is a shoe you can put on Rand's foot, but it's two sizes too big.

--Brant

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... since I am attacking a central psychological view of Ayn Rand and one which most Objectivists have absorbed uncritically from the novels...

Phil,

How about the "most Objectivists" I ran across at TAS's Atlas 50th anniversary celebration (where Barbara gave her talk)? They absorbed Rand's "central psychological view" critically—not "uncritically." I saw not one melodramatic doom-sayer there. (Well... maybe one...)

Bashing crowd psychology where it needs to be bashed is appropriate, especially for an Objectivist. After all, the entire premise of Atlas Shrugged is a moral revolution exalting individualism. How can there be a moral revolution if there is nothing to revolt against? One can bash the negative aspects of crowd psychology and point to the damage they cause (like the impact on Rand that Barbara mentioned) without oversimplifying.

The way you present this problem, one either accepts the caricature-like Objectivist bonehead (and there are quite a few who certainly do deserve to be lampooned), or claim that the crowd is never really wrong, only "complicated," and that the person speaking against the crowd is more hysterical than correct about the moral shortcomings he/she sees.

Would you consider the Nazis to be simply "complicated" because they were a crowd? When does "complicated" start becoming "wrong" for you? This is a false dichotomy.

There is a premise underlying all this that should be made explicit: moral progress through individual choice. Mankind did not evolve with a proper morality for conceptual thinking. His morality came from primitive conditions and his mind evolved faster than his values once conceptual thought became possible. It has been a long and slow haul morality-wise and it has had to happen one-by-one, although, once a proper value spread, it became part of the moral culture. For an easy example, it took till the 1800's for the human race in general to arrive at the conclusion that slavery is evil—and there are still exceptions.

People do absorb and reflect the moral culture they are brought up in, but they also have volition. Once they know that something is right and society is wrong, they are faced with a moral choice. There is no evading that situation and making fun of the word "evader" does not make that choice disappear.

I agree that victimization by the boneheads exists, but so does crucifixion. It is not either/or. I personally have been guilty of the first and have suffered the second, both on more times than I care to remember, so I am fairly sensitive to the difference. (It was a long and slow haul for me, too.) I agree that Rand's bitterness about the world smacks of victimization and this element got worse as she got older, but that does not alter the fact that she was cruelly crucified by society's intellectual leaders and her high-level admirers looked on in silence at her agony, except for some who whispered their congratulations when no one was looking. Both happened—the victimization and the crucifixion.

To put this in the jargon, if one does not evade and keeps essentials clearly in mind, it is easy to acknowledge the crucifixion without sanctioning the victimization.

Michael

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Barbara's and Ayn's fifties example, for all their highly understandable dismay and outrage at the (relative) absence of defenders, was not one of them. It was a jumping to a moral and psychological conclusion about particular individuals she did not know.

Philip -

I don't understand your comment here. I know that Rand, Barbara and Nathan, as well as others, decried the absence of first rate minds speaking out. But I don't ever recall it being conclusions "about particular individuals she did not know." Do you have examples of specific ("particular") individuals Rand criticized for not speaking out? What I have heard, instead, is a broad dismay, outrage and disappointment that there was "not a single first-rate mind" who spoke out. I have never heard Rand or either of the Brandens mention that they were disappointed that Person X did not speak out.

Did I miss statement on this from the journals or elsewhere?

Alfonso

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Barbara's and Ayn's fifties example, for all their highly understandable dismay and outrage at the (relative) absence of defenders, was [...] a jumping to a moral and psychological conclusion about particular individuals she did not know.

Something that Ayn Rand did far too often.

It's something that Ayn Rand did chronically -- and to huge dramatic effect at times. Her entire analysis of "the soul of the mystic," e.g., in Galt's Speech is a writ-large "jumping to a moral and psychological conclusion about" millions of "particular individuals she did not know" but didn't hesitate to psychologize (using "psychologize" in her own later-enunciated meaning).

I do think, however, that to have any expectation of Ayn Rand's reacting differently than she did to the reception of Atlas is to ask her to have been a different person than she was. I very much agree with the letter though not the spirit of a remark Leonard Peikoff made in his memoir of his thrity years with Ayn Rand: She was exactly the person she had to have been to have written Atlas Shrugged. That person, among other details, was a person who wanted to be told -- immitating a comment of Dagny's to Hugh Akston -- "well done" by "her kind of minds" which she'd hoped would greet her work with praise. I think if you don't understand why, given her particular psychology, Whittaker Chambers' review would have merely angered her whereas John Chamberlain's review would have depressed her, you're (a) not understanding the person AR was; and (b ) wanting her to have been someone according to your specifications while at the same time wanting her to have written a book which such a person would not and could not have written.

Ellen

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Edited by Ellen Stuttle
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I do think, however, that to have any expectation of Ayn Rand's reacting differently than she did to the reception of Atlas is to ask her to have been a different person than she was. I very much agree with the letter though not the spirit of a remark Leonard Peikoff made in his memoir of his thrity years with Ayn Rand: She was exactly the person she had to have been to have written Atlas Shrugged. That person, among other details, was a person who wanted to be told -- immitating a comment of Dagny's to Hugh Akston -- "well done" by "her kind of minds" which she'd hoped would greet her work with praise. I think if you don't understand why, given her particular psychology, Whittaker Chambers' review would have merely angered her whereas John Chamberlain's review would have depressed her, you're (a) not understanding the person AR was; and (b ) wanting her to have been someone according to your specifications while at the same time wanting her to have written a book which such a person would not and could not have written.

Ellen

___

There was a different Ayn Rand. His name was Robert A. Heinlein. Read -The Moon is a Harsh Mistress-. This book occupies a place of honor on my shelf right next to -Atlas Shrugged- and -The Dispossessed- (by Ursula Laguin).

I know this fellow (his first name is Bob) who formulated a logical equivalent to Objectivism a year before he had read a single word by Ayn Rand. He called his system Reality Lite.

Ba'al Chatzaf

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I very much agree with the letter though not the spirit of a remark Leonard Peikoff made in his memoir of his thrity years with Ayn Rand: She was exactly the person she had to have been to have written Atlas Shrugged. That person, among other details, was a person who wanted to be told -- immitating a comment of Dagny's to Hugh Akston -- "well done" by "her kind of minds" which she'd hoped would greet her work with praise. I think if you don't understand why, given her particular psychology, Whittaker Chambers' review would have merely angered her whereas John Chamberlain's review would have depressed her, you're (a) not understanding the person AR was; and (b ) wanting her to have been someone according to your specifications while at the same time wanting her to have written a book which such a person would not and could not have written.

Ellen,

This is the way I understand Ayn Rand's mentality.

Michael

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I know this fellow (his first name is Bob) who formulated a logical equivalent to Objectivism a year before he had read a single word by Ayn Rand. He called his system Reality Lite.

Where is this "Bob"? I'll tear off his head and and ....

--Brant

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I don't have a copy of the Journals of Ayn Rand, but I remembered reading Rand's comments on Frank Lloyd Wright as being the type of creator who works toward his own destruction, and I found an excerpt online:

"Frank Lloyd Wright: The creator who is overly concerned with others for the sake of their admiration. His achievement is authentic and first-hand, he does not let others into this sphere—but he still wants their admiration, afterwards, and it is an important concern to him."

I thought it was interesting in light of Rand's need to be publicly recognized by "her kind of minds" and the pain she apparently experienced because of the absence of such recognition. Perhaps Wright was the more outwardly authentic of the two?

The comment is also interesting in how it pertains to Rand's fans and the various levels at which they seem to need to be admired.

J

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I don't have a copy of the Journals of Ayn Rand, but I remembered reading Rand's comments on Frank Lloyd Wright as being the type of creator who works toward his own destruction, and I found an excerpt online:
"Frank Lloyd Wright: The creator who is overly concerned with others for the sake of their admiration. His achievement is authentic and first-hand, he does not let others into this sphere—but he still wants their admiration, afterwards, and it is an important concern to him."

I thought it was interesting in light of Rand's need to be publicly recognized by "her kind of minds" and the pain she apparently experienced because of the absence of such recognition. Perhaps Wright was the more outwardly authentic of the two?

The comment is also interesting in how it pertains to Rand's fans and the various levels at which they seem to need to be admired.

The quote is from p. 494 and is accurate. Please note that Rand did not write this for publication.

It sure is interesting.

There's nothing wrong with seeking admiration as long as it's not a primary, but a consequence of doing something well and right. It has to do with natural human interaction. OL is as much a social forum as an intellectual one, for instance. I wouldn't post on a left-wing libertarian forum or go back to the infantile, let's-do-genocide cesspool that SOLOP was when I left. It's good to have an audience instead of only being bottled completely up for several years writing a book. I make serious posts and some humorous ones. In regard to the latter, when I see something funny I want to share it even though I am not a comedian. It's just an easy gift I have.

--Brant

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There was a different Ayn Rand. His name was Robert A. Heinlein. Read -The Moon is a Harsh Mistress-. This book occupies a place of honor on my shelf right next to -Atlas Shrugged- and -The Dispossessed- (by Ursula Laguin).

I know this fellow (his first name is Bob) who formulated a logical equivalent to Objectivism a year before he had read a single word by Ayn Rand. He called his system Reality Lite.

LOL, though I suspect you weren't joking. Coming up with some similar ideas to Ayn Rand's is hardly the same thing as writing an oeuvre such as Atlas Shrugged. I came up with an ethical framework along similar lines to hers before I ever heard of her. (I've come to think over the years that my framework is actually better because of not making the leaps of logic and not leading to moralism, but that's another story.) It's the particular psychology needed to write Atlas Shrugged which I was talking about.

Ellen

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There was a different Ayn Rand. His name was Robert A. Heinlein. Read -The Moon is a Harsh Mistress-. This book occupies a place of honor on my shelf right next to -Atlas Shrugged- and -The Dispossessed- (by Ursula Laguin).

I know this fellow (his first name is Bob) who formulated a logical equivalent to Objectivism a year before he had read a single word by Ayn Rand. He called his system Reality Lite.

LOL, though I suspect you weren't joking. Coming up with some similar ideas to Ayn Rand's is hardly the same thing as writing an oeuvre such as Atlas Shrugged. I came up with an ethical framework along similar lines to hers before I ever heard of her. (I've come to think over the years that my framework is actually better because of not making the leaps of logic and not leading to moralism, but that's another story.) It's the particular psychology needed to write Atlas Shrugged which I was talking about.

Ellen

___

I have a similar thought. Rand was a novelist such as I could never be, but her logic was tatty and frayed. My formulation has the virtue of being rigorously founded and is consistent with sound science. That is because I put facts before philosophy. Also I am a mathematician by training and I know how to put together a tight proof. Rand did not have this background. Also I never took the road to moralism, either. Morality is opinion. There are no moral facts. There are no laws of physical reality that imply, determine or specify morality. Not one. Nature does not care if we are good or bad.

As for art, Heinlein was a better story teller. Not that -Atlas Shrugged- is bad but Heinlein stories -rock-. Ursula Le Guin is also a better story teller. Here best political ouvre is -The Dispossessed- which did for anarchism, what Rand did for capitalism. Ayn Rand stories are a showcase for her monologues (some of which were quite good). I think of Ayn Rand as having Victor Hugo envy.

Ba'al Chatzaf

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I have a similar thought. Rand was a novelist such as I could never be, but her logic was tatty and frayed. My formulation has the virtue of being rigorously founded and is consistent with sound science. That is because I put facts before philosophy. Also I am a mathematician by training and I know how to put together a tight proof. Rand did not have this background. Also I never took the road to moralism, either. Morality is opinion. There are no moral facts. There are no laws of physical reality that imply, determine or specify morality. Not one. Nature does not care if we are good or bad.

"Facts before philosophy" is a contradiction. The two are supposed to be integrated--are integrated, rightly or wrongly. Regardless, the formulation is YOUR philosophy not your "fact." The asseveration that Rand's "logic was tatty and frayed" is only that since logic per se is contentless and she didn't write any books on logic. If you mean her use of logic was bad give one of your examples, of which I am sure you have many, so we can discuss it. (Please start a thread.) BTW, the implication of your statement is that her philosophy should be tossed--that all she needed was yours. And I don't see how killing a billion people is "Reality Lite" or amoral--amoral since morality is only an opinion. In the name of protecting your tribe you'd do that if you could if it would--if you'd think it could or would--and pretend morality is an opinion side dish. Hitler was evil, was immoral, just an opinion, not a fact. You are aware that morality deals with questions of right and wrong? If you are claiming right action this and right action that, you are claiming moral action this and moral action that. Scientific questions are moral questions also. Otherwise scientific truth would be determined by the gun or vote. The reason the right answer, the truth, is the moral answer is that without knowledge of right action you and I and all are screwed by ignorance.

--Brant

Edited by Brant Gaede
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There was a different Ayn Rand. His name was Robert A. Heinlein. Read -The Moon is a Harsh Mistress-. This book occupies a place of honor on my shelf right next to -Atlas Shrugged- and -The Dispossessed- (by Ursula Laguin).

I know this fellow (his first name is Bob) who formulated a logical equivalent to Objectivism a year before he had read a single word by Ayn Rand. He called his system Reality Lite.

LOL, though I suspect you weren't joking. Coming up with some similar ideas to Ayn Rand's is hardly the same thing as writing an oeuvre such as Atlas Shrugged. I came up with an ethical framework along similar lines to hers before I ever heard of her. (I've come to think over the years that my framework is actually better because of not making the leaps of logic and not leading to moralism, but that's another story.) It's the particular psychology needed to write Atlas Shrugged which I was talking about.

Ellen

___

I have a similar thought. Rand was a novelist such as I could never be, but her logic was tatty and frayed. My formulation has the virtue of being rigorously founded and is consistent with sound science. That is because I put facts before philosophy. Also I am a mathematician by training and I know how to put together a tight proof. Rand did not have this background. Also I never took the road to moralism, either. Morality is opinion. There are no moral facts. There are no laws of physical reality that imply, determine or specify morality. Not one. Nature does not care if we are good or bad.

As for art, Heinlein was a better story teller. Not that -Atlas Shrugged- is bad but Heinlein stories -rock-. Ursula Le Guin is also a better story teller. Here best political ouvre is -The Dispossessed- which did for anarchism, what Rand did for capitalism. Ayn Rand stories are a showcase for her monologues (some of which were quite good). I think of Ayn Rand as having Victor Hugo envy.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Given your evaluation above, could you supply us with two or three of what you view as Rand's most spectacular and clear logical errors? Preferably on matters of serious significance, not peripheral issues.

Alfonso

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Steve and Phil, I think it is you, not I, who badly underestimate people’s intelligence. It’s irrelevant here what Rand may have been asking of her readers; I’m speaking for myself, not for her – and I have not been asking anyone to perform miracles or to consider himself a moral monster if he fails to do so. Please do not attribute Rand’s moralism to me; I have been speaking out against it, in theory and in practice, for many years. I am saying that I believe men of significant achievement are intelligent enough to know a very, very simple fact: if they admire something or someone, and see it being unjustly attacked and denigrated, they ought to speak up. At minimum, I assume that at least some of them are that intelligent, that unconfused.

Surely you would grant that if a man is a libertarian and believes that Hillary’s election would be a disaster, he ought not to be silent when she is being praised, but should loudly and clearly state his view. If such people don’t speak up, we will not e a free country for very long. Remember the concept of “the sanction of the victim?

And I think it is you, not I, who has a malevolent view of people when you expect so pitifully little of them. When one’s most cherished values are under attack, one doesn’t have to be a philosopher or to have memorized the constitution or to spend years taking courses in “why one ought to fight for one’s values” before making as loud and extensive a public stink as possible.

Some of you object to the poem that Alfonso quoted, the last verse of which is:

But rather mourn the apathetic throng

The cowed and the meek

Who see the world's great anguish and its wrong

And dare not speak!

I can only say: Where have you been? Have you not noticed the epidemic in this country, and throughout the world, of people – often out of fear that they will be considered “intolerant” or “judgmental” if they say what they think -- pussyfooting around the issue of Islamo-Fascism, being “even-handed” and “seeing both sides” of a conflict in which one side proudly chops the heads off living men? And many of them may well hate terrorism and Islamo-Fascism and hope that someone – for God’s sake, anyone!! -- will fight the battle they are not fighting and say the words they are not saying. Is this okay with you? It isn’t okay with me.

I am certainly not hurling charges of immorality at large groups of unknown people, much less at an entire culture. Some of them may well be justified in keeping silent, for reasons I do not know; some of them may honestly believe they are justified; some of them may feel a pang of guilt; many of them are “the apathetic throng, the cowed and the meek.” All I can do is to say what I think, and let those who are willing to do so examine their own motivation. But what I do know is that if we are to have a future not lived in caves, we had all better speak up before it is too late.

“I wondered why somebody didn't do something. Then I realized, I am somebody.” (Anon)

Barbara

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I wondered why somebody don't do something than I remembered I am somebody. Anon

Barbara; I wasn reminded with that comment of Ronald Reagan's line "If not me who, if not now when."

Edited by Chris Grieb
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Given your evaluation above, could you supply us with two or three of what you view as Rand's most spectacular and clear logical errors? Preferably on matters of serious significance, not peripheral issues.

Alfonso

She was ignorant of the first and second laws of thermo-dynamics (as evidenced with Galt's machine for turning static electricity into current electricity - it can't be done, since it would produce a perpetual motion machine)

She also did not know what mathematics really was. She thought it was primarily about numbers and measurement. This is a fairly common error.

She had a wrong definition of logic. Logic is the discipline/science/art of valid inference. This is the definition given by people who do logic for a living.

If I needed a definition of medicine I would go to a doctor or a researcher in the field, not to a novelist with a Russian accent. Likewise, if I needed a definition of logic I would go to a professional logician, not a novelist with a Russian accent.

Her first biggest error was transitioning from a successful novel to a political-philosophical movement. She was neither a politician nor a philosopher. She was a successful novelist with a Russian accent. Gathering acolytes can lead to sorrow and corruption. Ursula Le Guin who did for anarchism, what Rand did for capitalism, did not make such an error.

L. Ron Hubbard did a similar piece of nonsense. What did we get? Scientology.

Her second biggest error was bankrolling that second rate intellectual, Leonard the Pope. He is full of himself and comments on fields of which he is ignorant. Feh! He does not know what logic or mathematics is either.

On the other hand, she got the function and nature of money right on the mark (e.g. Francisco's speech given for Hank's benefit). And I am on the same page as she is, with regard to capitalism. One of my operating principles is: what is mine is mine and what is yours is yours. I am a propertarian down to my toenails. So was Rand.

Ba'al Chatzaf

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Given your evaluation above, could you supply us with two or three of what you view as Rand's most spectacular and clear logical errors? Preferably on matters of serious significance, not peripheral issues.

Alfonso

She was ignorant of the first and second laws of thermo-dynamics (as evidenced with Galt's machine for turning static electricity into current electricity - it can't be done, since it would produce a perpetual motion machine)

She also did not know what mathematics really was. She thought it was primarily about numbers and measurement. This is a fairly common error.

She had a wrong definition of logic. Logic is the discipline/science/art of valid inference. This is the definition given by people who do logic for a living.

(snip)

I asked for three of Rand's "most spectacular and clear logical errors." And the first thing I see listed is the old canard about Galt's motor and the laws of thermo-dynamics.

Which part of "it is fiction" is so hard to understand? That's fiction! Rand herself listed dimensions of AS she did not regard as "realistic" - the speed of collapse of society, etc. Why keep coming back to one particular thing - Galt's motor - and pretend that AR thought it was scientifically sound?

Do you declare that H.G. Wells made "significant logical errors" in The Time Machine? Or do you see that was also a literary device?

Why is the plot element of Galt's motor put to the standard of "is it logically consistent and scientifically feasible?" The novel is . . . well, a novel. That's in the fiction category, not the nonfiction category. If Rand had concretely said in her nonfiction that she thought Galt's motor (a plot device in what she referred to as a "stunt novel") was scientifically feasible and logically consistent, I would understand your comment. (Although I would not regard it as that important - Rand did not present herself as a physical scientist, or give advice on physics, as far as I can see.) As it is - - - your comment is totally irrelevant.

Alfonso

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I asked for three of Rand's "most spectacular and clear logical errors." And the first thing I see listed is the old canard about Galt's motor and the laws of thermo-dynamics.

Which part of "it is fiction" is so hard to understand? That's fiction! Rand herself listed dimensions of AS she did not regard as "realistic" - the speed of collapse of society, etc. Why keep coming back to one particular thing - Galt's motor - and pretend that AR thought it was scientifically sound?

Do you declare that H.G. Wells made "significant logical errors" in The Time Machine? Or do you see that was also a literary device?

Why is the plot element of Galt's motor put to the standard of "is it logically consistent and scientifically feasible?" The novel is . . . well, a novel. That's in the fiction category, not the nonfiction category. If Rand had concretely said in her nonfiction that she thought Galt's motor (a plot device in what she referred to as a "stunt novel") was scientifically feasible and logically consistent, I would understand your comment. (Although I would not regard it as that important - Rand did not present herself as a physical scientist, or give advice on physics, as far as I can see.) As it is - - - your comment is totally irrelevant.

Alfonso

She and her "intellectual heir" saw fit to comment on science and mathematics in their non-fiction publications. Had her fiction merely used Galt's machine as a plot "McGuffin" I would not have said a word. But she took her nonsense beyond the fictional page. You don't here me say boo about Star Trek Trensporters which violate the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. You don't here me say a word about Warp Drive which violates the speed of light limit. Here is why. The people who use these fictional artifacts have not founded a philosophical movement which claims truth. That is why. I have no brief against fairy tales and science fiction at all. In fact, science fiction is my favorite genre along with alternate history fiction.

Riddle me this: Why do so many self-identified Objectivists barf on quantum physics? Then they take their barf onto the internet using a device (the transistor based digital computer) which would not exist except for a science they hold in contempt. This really rankles me no end.

If Objectivists limited their output to pushing for capitalism and against creeping socialist-fascism I would root for their team with a whole heart. But they don't. They hold much of the philosophical work since Aristotle in contempt. They have little or no appreciation for the progress in physics that has occurred since Newton and Maxwell. Even smart Objectivists like the late Stephen Speicher lusted and longed after a deterministic interpretation of quantum physics. Here is the plain fact: Classical physics has failed. It is wrong. It does not predict correctly in all cases. But quantum physics, especially the Standard Model is based on a philosophical orientation that Objectivists despise, and it is the most spectacular and successful science ever. But Objectivists fight against this fact. Why? I say it is because of a flaw in the philosophy. They think their axioms are sufficient for deriving reality. They most certainly are NOT.

Here is a piece of advice I got somewhere. If your conclusions are in conflict with observed fact, check your premises.

Ba'al Chatzaf

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Steve and Phil, I think it is you, not I, who badly underestimate people’s intelligence. [...]

I never said, nor implied, that you did so. I certainly am not doing so. Intelligence, as such, is not the issue, and never was the issue. It's a matter of Rand's expectations and their matching up to reality. (Whether or not they're relevant, you're talking, however obliquely, about them.) Where the matching fails, in large or small matters, is manifold, and several of us have pointed this out.

Please do not attribute Rand’s moralism to me; I have been speaking out against it, in theory and in practice, for many years. [...]

I'm not attributing Rand's moralism to you. I have been saying, indirectly, that you — for many of the best of reasons, among them your friendship with her and understanding of her — have risked, on this topic, showing some of it for yourself. I doubt this was your intent, on any level, but it's a risk nonetheless, and one that I have to explain further.

You in the "Collective" had a crusade in 1957, fueled by years of seeing the literary champion among you building up her armaments on typed pages. I know how compelling a crusade can be. I've been in a score of them myself, in and out of politics. Though with intensity that was rarely close to what your circle showed.

And I know one salient fact of any crusade: It doesn't give sufficient attention to its opponents. Not in their number, their intensity, their inertia, their blind support. If it did, it would be stopped.

That's part of what can make crusaders succeed in overcoming obstacles. To reverse the old aphorism, youth and inexperience can beat age and guile, mainly because the guile-filled get complacent and careless. You found that out with the astonishing success of NBI.

Fierce intensity can be excused, and often should be, when it's aimed toward rational ends. That doesn't mean such intensity excuses the failure of rational means. With all due respect, Rand and the rest of you came up short on rational means. Among them, I'd have to say:

~ Expecting that pellucid prose would lead to philosophical upheaval in only a few years. (You write about discouraging Peikoff's fervor. Even Nathaniel, though, thought a "culture" was far too easily "cooked.")

~ Discounting how fervently the irrationalists would reinforce each other. (Despite its being an outrage, if no Chambers had published such a "review," and no Buckley had abetted him, I'd have been shocked. The two made a potent tactical alliance, and they knew it.)

~ Seeing mass viewpoints that didn't exist. Rand had, and has, no solid front of opposition or exclusion. Fractions of unreason have always been at cross purposes. She herself forgot the insight she gave to Dominique: [...] there had always been a God and a Devil — only men had been so mistaken about the shapes of their Devil — he was not single and big, he was many and smutty and small.

~ Expecting outer courage to match inner realizations. I've long felt that this is the saddest failing, in all sorts of movements. It's too easy to make distant moral judgments on insufficient evidence. It's also too easy to assume that few obstacles exist to an individual being able to match theory and practice.

This last may well have come, from where I sit, in the Collective — and in Objectivists ever since — not grasping points that came from the Austrian economists whom so many have long admired. Knowledge is distributed far more widely, in smaller pieces, and on more mundane levels than crusaders will ever be inclined to admit.

When the world is being saved, or desired to be, it's too easy to forget that most knowledge is personal, local, and retail, as contrasted with philosophy, in Rand's words, being "the wholesaler in human affairs."

The problem here is that human beings live their lives on the retail level. As much as they'd like to deal with reworking their views and acting upon what they've discovered, they have to deal with ... well, continuing to earn a living. Not alienating the families they value. Being uninclined to revolution. Preserving what they earn.

It's easy to expect that individuals would be inclined, in following truth or clarity from a book such as Atlas, to put such matters aside. Yet few know how to do so. It takes a vast questioning of mores to even begin to do so, and that was not happening in American culture in 1957. Not in the broad middle class, anyway. Ten, twenty, thirty years or more would have to pass for that to happen on a larger scale.

[...] I am saying that I believe men of significant achievement are intelligent enough to know a very, very simple fact: if they admire something or someone, and see it being unjustly attacked and denigrated, they ought to speak up. At minimum, I assume that at least some of them are that intelligent, that unconfused.

They ought to. You don't and can't know, though, for any one person, on any level of achievement, what circumstances make it difficult to speak up — or to get a pre-Net podium. Nor can you know their "confusion." Just as you cannot look inside anyone and fathom all of what comprises that person's moral character — not beyond one's closest circle, if then.

And I think it is you, not I, who has a malevolent view of people when you expect so pitifully little of them. [...]

Neither I nor Phil said this of you, nor implied it. How on Earth can you suggest that seeing reasons — good or bad — for others not rising to a moral expectation involves a "malevolent" outlook?

All I can "expect" is that when a standard is raised "to which the wise and honest can repair" — Rand alluded to Washington's phrase in Atlas — some will see it and at least attempt to transcend obstacles to reach it. I know, though, from history and endless example, that this is difficult. I'm thrilled by such successes, on any scale, but still know that they are rare.

As for current societal pathologies, or the illusions ginned up about them, all I can say here that's relevant is this: Albert Jay Nock — whom Rand ought to have listened to much more than she did — noted that we have nothing going in the current ethical and political morass that's "new." Or uniquely threatening. Nothing, in fact, that wasn't ancient when Thucydides wrote his History of the Peloponnesian War nearly 2,400 years ago.

I've probably gone past MSK's strictures by now, so I'll have to thus conclude my remarks in this thread.

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Here we go again!

I agree with Alfonso. Has Leonard Peikoff ever said he thought Galt's motor was a technical possibility? I have heard criticism of Objectivist criticism of contemporary physics. I don't know much about the issue but I would like to hear more.

I am certain that Rand understood you couldn't have a perpetual motion machine. I don't think the motor was.

Edited by Chris Grieb
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I asked for three of Rand's "most spectacular and clear logical errors." And the first thing I see listed is the old canard about Galt's motor and the laws of thermo-dynamics.

Which part of "it is fiction" is so hard to understand? That's fiction! Rand herself listed dimensions of AS she did not regard as "realistic" - the speed of collapse of society, etc. Why keep coming back to one particular thing - Galt's motor - and pretend that AR thought it was scientifically sound?

Do you declare that H.G. Wells made "significant logical errors" in The Time Machine? Or do you see that was also a literary device?

Why is the plot element of Galt's motor put to the standard of "is it logically consistent and scientifically feasible?" The novel is . . . well, a novel. That's in the fiction category, not the nonfiction category. If Rand had concretely said in her nonfiction that she thought Galt's motor (a plot device in what she referred to as a "stunt novel") was scientifically feasible and logically consistent, I would understand your comment. (Although I would not regard it as that important - Rand did not present herself as a physical scientist, or give advice on physics, as far as I can see.) As it is - - - your comment is totally irrelevant.

Alfonso

She and her "intellectual heir" saw fit to comment on science and mathematics in their non-fiction publications. Had her fiction merely used Galt's machine as a plot "McGuffin" I would not have said a word. But she took her nonsense beyond the fictional page. You don't here me say boo about Star Trek Trensporters which violate the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. You don't here me say a word about Warp Drive which violates the speed of light limit. Here is why. The people who use these fictional artifacts have not founded a philosophical movement which claims truth. That is why. I have no brief against fairy tales and science fiction at all. In fact, science fiction is my favorite genre along with alternate history fiction.

Riddle me this: Why do so many self-identified Objectivists barf on quantum physics? Then they take their barf onto the internet using a device (the transistor based digital computer) which would not exist except for a science they hold in contempt. This really rankles me no end.

If Objectivists limited their output to pushing for capitalism and against creeping socialist-fascism I would root for their team with a whole heart. But they don't. They hold much of the philosophical work since Aristotle in contempt. They have little or no appreciation for the progress in physics that has occurred since Newton and Maxwell. Even smart Objectivists like the late Stephen Speicher lusted and longed after a deterministic interpretation of quantum physics. Here is the plain fact: Classical physics has failed. It is wrong. It does not predict correctly in all cases. But quantum physics, especially the Standard Model is based on a philosophical orientation that Objectivists despise, and it is the most spectacular and successful science ever. But Objectivists fight against this fact. Why? I say it is because of a flaw in the philosophy. They think their axioms are sufficient for deriving reality. They most certainly are NOT.

Here is a piece of advice I got somewhere. If your conclusions are in conflict with observed fact, check your premises.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Well,

1) The ONLY PERSON I ever saw Rand documentably refer to as her intellectual heir was Nathaniel Branden. She so designated him quite clearly. Leonard Peikoff is her financial heir. I have NEVER seen a single reference BY RAND to Peikoff as intellectual heir. Can you supply such a reference? (Not Peikoff saying he is Rand's intellectual heir, or someone else saying it AFTER RAND'S DEATH, but Rand saying it - or anyone else saying it when Rand would have known about it and been available to rebut? If so, please do so.

2) Can you cite actual quotes BY RAND in which she claims to authoritatively speak on physics? Let's stay on subject. PHYSICS. Not straying to mathematics, logic, etc.... Did Rand ever comment on quantum physics? I just did an electronic search of all of her published fiction and nonfiction, using the Objectivism CD-ROM, and found a total of one instance of the word quantum in something written by Rand. Nothing negative contained in that cite, at all. If you can supply a cite where Rand does what you imply she does, please do so.

3) Now, I agree that Peikoff has taken some very silly positions on physics. Extremely silly, and indefensible. But I don't see why one should tag Rand with that. Unless you want to hold Rand responsible for every position Peikoff has taken, even a decade or more after her death.

4) Again, Rand's philosophical movement has never claimed truth of every fictional element of Atlas Shrugged, We the Living, The Fountainhead, etc... I can't imagine why anyone would think that she or they did so. Again - - - it's fiction. Get the distinction between FICTION and NON-FICTION to avoid much confusion.

Alfonso

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Alfonso; Excellent post. Peikoff as you correctly pointed out has never given any proof beyond being Miss Rand's financial heir that he is her "intellectual heir."

Does anyone know if in the 19th century there was work on something like Galt's motor like Miss Rand seems to suggest in Atlas.

Edited by Chris Grieb
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