We knew this would return to bite us


Greybird

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Bob, criticizing Nietzsche as a way of criticizing Rand is one hell of a bait and switch.

--Brant

I'm not comparing the two Philosophers if that's what you mean.

I simply mean I feel the exact same way about Rand as Blanchard does about Nietzche.

Then please illustrate with a published Rand quote. Maybe the tunnel disaster? Nietzsche went nuts, BTW.

--Brant

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Baal, I know you describe yourself as literal minded, but I think you just hit on something quite unexpected. Hickman's looks. Rand was clearly infatuated by a certain look in men. I'll bet anything this guy was a hunk. ---- I just googled the guy and found a picture. Yep, he awfully good-looking. Why am I not surprised.

Ginny,

I would presume that many of history's monsters (especially serial killers) were good looking. Society has imprinted on its offspring that good looks parallel with good morals, good character, good everything. It's precisely this fact that allows the world's Hickmans to get past the first and most vital line of defense...your gut feeling. In most cases, it's catastrophic.

~ Shane

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Bob, criticizing Nietzsche as a way of criticizing Rand is one hell of a bait and switch.

--Brant

I'm not comparing the two Philosophers if that's what you mean.

I simply mean I feel the exact same way about Rand as Blanchard does about Nietzche.

Then please illustrate with a published Rand quote. Maybe the tunnel disaster? Nietzsche went nuts, BTW.

--Brant

I'll see if I can find a quick illustration of what I mean, but I find it more or less self-evident that her writing is a:

"boiling pot of enthusiasms and animosities, which she pours out volubly, skillfully, and eloquently."

Do you disagree with that?

Edited by Bob_Mac
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Bob, criticizing Nietzsche as a way of criticizing Rand is one hell of a bait and switch.

--Brant

I'm not comparing the two Philosophers if that's what you mean.

I simply mean I feel the exact same way about Rand as Blanchard does about Nietzche.

Then please illustrate with a published Rand quote. Maybe the tunnel disaster? Nietzsche went nuts, BTW.

--Brant

I'll see if I can find a quick illustration of what I mean, but I find it more or less self-evident that her writing is a:

"boiling pot of enthusiasms and animosities, which she pours out volubly, skillfully, and eloquently."

Do you disagree with that?

You're entitled to your steaming, evaluative rhetoric. But don't think you can just shovel it into my mind with some little "I do" from me.

--Brant

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Brant writes "Her orientation was philosophical, not psychological and she really didn't know or understand evil."

- and this is the crux of the matter, isn't it?

Despite her worldly comprehension, I am left to this day with the sense of Rand's utter innocence, possibly naivete.

I can't work it out, but it goes some way to explaining this Hickman puzzle, and more so, the extreme protectiveness that Objectivists often feel towards her.

Tony

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Brant, Tony - you're painting AR so naive as to border stupidity. Stupid the woman never was. Even the dullest member of Main Street would have a better understanding of a viscious killer. Is that what you're saying?

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Brant writes "Her orientation was philosophical, not psychological and she really didn't know or understand evil."

- and this is the crux of the matter, isn't it?

Despite her worldly comprehension, I am left to this day with the sense of Rand's utter innocence, possibly naivete.

I can't work it out, but it goes some way to explaining this Hickman puzzle, and more so, the extreme protectiveness that Objectivists often feel towards her.

Tony

I think ginny got it right. He was an extreme social pariah and he was hot. Those two things clearly overshadowed all else. The guy was a pedophile butcher - the words 'innocence' and 'naivete' don't cut it.

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Brant, Tony - you're painting AR so naive as to border stupidity. Stupid the woman never was. Even the dullest member of Main Street would have a better understanding of a viscious killer. Is that what you're saying?

I don't consider this to be a matter of intelligence but a certain kind of delimited, biological determinism.

The way to understand Rand at her human best is simply to read We the Living, not that crap she wrote some years earlier.

--Brant

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WE The Living is my absolute favorite. But -- could you be referring to the now deleted section where she's talking about the blood of people being spilled by those that can - just because they can? Don't mean to be picky, Brand, but this narcissictic streak obviously bugs me.

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Let me ask you guys something: if you had a 23 year old neighbor who thought Bundy was real cute and should be lauded for never apologizing for his killings. What would your opinion be? Are you judging AR differently? Does, in your mind, the fact that she wrote some fabulous books exempt her? I'm curious.

Ginny

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I wrote about this a while back (2006).

Now we come to a person I happen to like, best-selling author, Michael Prescott. I have read several of his books and they are highly entertaining thrillers. The man is good at what he does and totally deserves his success. I have had very friendly correspondence with him, both on line and by email. He is an ex-Objectivist. Sometimes he has harsh words for both the philosophy and Rand, but he also blames a culture of negativity and underachievement that permeates many online Objectivist groups for his own lack of initiative in his earlier days. He has written an account of his own "shrug" (of Objectivism), however, the sheer number of blog entries about Rand and Objectivism that he has written is an indication (to me at least) that there are some fundamental Objectivist issues that still bother him.

Michael did some important historical research into an aspect of early Rand that is not too flattering to her. But I hold that facts should not be sanitized, but brought out into the light of day instead. So it was refreshing to read his report.

When Rand was in her early twenties, she was at work on a novel she never finished called The Little Street. Her hero was named Danny Renahan. From her published journal entries, she was still under the influence of Nietzsche. She focused on a story that was reported widely in the news in 1928. A young man named William Edward Hickman abducted a 12 year-old girl, Marian (sometimes Marion) Parker, demanded and received ransom from the family, killed the girl and chopped her up, then threw half of her body on the road in front of her father before taking off. He was later caught, tried, sentenced to death and hung.

In looking at his image during the trial and seeing the general public reaction to his crime and attitude, Rand isolated and worked on several aspects that would later evolve into her idea of heroic rational individualism. In hindsight, in light of whom she used as a role model, this focus looks rather unseemly. One can see the seeds of greatness in her journal entries and, at the same time, be pretty uncomfortable with the facts. Michael allowed us to look at the facts and wrote a report called "Romancing the Stone-Cold Killer: Ayn Rand and William Hickman." It is a highly interesting read. Also, there is a different account of Hickman at the Crime Library website called "Fate, Death and The Fox: Edward Hickman."

For the record, here is what one of Rand's early physical models for a hero looked like (William Edward Hickman):

6-1-William-E-Hickman.jpg

With so much good information which practically speaks for itself, now take a look at what Michael concludes:

By the appraisal of any normal mind, there can be little doubt that William Edward Hickman was a vicious psychopath of the worst order. That Ayn Rand saw something heroic, brilliant, and romantic in this despicable creature is perhaps the single worst indictment of her that I have come across. It is enough to make me question not only her judgment, but her sanity.

At this point in my life, I did not think it was possible to significantly lower my estimate of Ayn Rand, or to regard her as even more of a psychological and moral mess than I had already taken her to be.

I stand corrected.

When you read something like that, you don't want to take the facts seriously. You see that the author's effort was not to understand Rand, but to discredit her. Regardless of what you read, you have the feeling that you need to check and recheck all of Michael's facts and sources. Obviously, he was not writing for Objectivists or even the general public. He was writing for Rand haters. Nobody else could think Ayn Rand was insane.

Here is the link to Michael's essay again: Romancing the Stone-Cold Killer: Ayn Rand and William Hickman

If you read through all the links in that essay, you get quite a story. Michael and I even wrote to each other about this.

One fact I found interesting is that Hickman died "yellow," begging for his life. He had nothing of the hero behind the good-looking face that Rand attributed to him.

If I remember correctly, Rand was really into Thus Spoke Zarathustra at this time, and she had an uber-contemptuous view of "the masses" that mellowed as she matured. In her later writing, I detect ambivalence toward ordinary people, bouncing back and forth between tenderness/grudging respect and indifference/outright hostile contempt, depending on the point she was making.

I wonder if Hickman's arrogant statements about him being like the state and conceited facial expressions gave her a concrete visual image of a response for her hatred of all those years in Russia where people constantly held up the common man as the standard of the good--and sacrificed her family's property to prove it. I imagine this was so.

I also believe when Rand was in her twenties, she was seeking out what I call an author's "profound points," the big themes she wanted to write about. She was well aware, even at that age, that great writers find them where other people overlook them. Nietzsche certainly did. He had a good technique for this, too. He was a master at running cliches backward and thus find a different profound truth. Rand did that a lot and I believe Nietzsche is where she learned how to do it.

But she really misfired on trying to find her profound points in Hickman.

I agree with Barbara. That should not be defended. You can try to understand it, but it is silly to defend a screw-up that big.

Michael

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Ginny:

It actually does not surprise me.

Adam

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Let me ask you guys something: if you had a 23 year old neighbor who thought Bundy was real cute and should be lauded for never apologizing for his killings. What would your opinion be? Are you judging AR differently? Does, in your mind, the fact that she wrote some fabulous books exempt her? I'm curious.

Ginny

Ginny,

Is this the first you've heard about the episode? I'm asking because my reaction when I read about it a year ago was to be privately aghast at Ayn Rand.

Now please don't launch against those of us who have long done our own thinking about it and some psychologizing about her.

I am not defending, or "exempting" Rand.

I am trying to understand her.

Yes, it is inconsistent with what she has written and advocated. And this is what causes our pain.

For me, I'll handle it as I always have: that the value of Objectivism, far, far outweighs the contradictions in the make-up of its creator.

I'm sure you will find your own way.

Tony

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Tony, yes, this is the first I've heard of this (I live a sheltered existence). And I think your last paragraph is right on. By no means was I trying to say she didn't offer tremendous value. I'm just saying her thinking could get screwed. I think everyone but Peikoff and buddy Harry (is it former buddy these days?) can agree to that. (And you don't have to answer my question. I think I know the answer.)

Ginny

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But she really misfired on trying to find her profound points in Hickman.

I agree with Barbara. That should not be defended. You can try to understand it, but it is silly to defend a screw-up that big.

I’m still not on the bus. She toyed with depicting an anti-hero, and didn’t follow through. You can spin this at least a couple different ways, I seem to credit the fact that she didn’t follow through, more so than others are doing. Night of January 16th probably evolved out of this. I’m reminded of Umberto Eco’s comment on what inspired him to write The Name of the Rose: “I wanted to poison a monk”. He's actually felt the need to defend himself for saying that.

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Dennis,

Rand toyed with the idea of depicting an anti-hero?

Where on earth did you get that idea?

Hickman was to be a model for a hero as per her own notes. And on a personal level, she felt "my involuntary, irresistible sympathy for him" (her words, not mine--Journals, pp. 43-44).

Check this paragraph out from the Journals, p. 44:

Hickman said: "I am like the state: what is good for me is right." Even if he wasn't big enough to live by that attitude, he deserves credit for saying it so brilliantly. There is a lot that is purposelessly, senselessly horrible about him. But that does not interest me. I want to remember his actions and characteristics that will be useful for the boy in my story. His limitless daring and his frightful sense of humor, e.g., when he was playing the Victrola while policemen searched his apartment and he offered to help, asking if he could do anything for them. His calm, defiant attitude at the trial. His almost inhuman strength in being able to joke about his death sentence: "The die is cast and the state wins by a neck." His deliberate smiling when posing for photographs after the sentence. His hard, cynical attitude toward everything, as shown in the little detail that he expressed his feelings after the sentence by saying one obscene word. The fact that he looks like "a bad boy with a very winning grin," that he makes you like him the whole time you are in his presence, that he has a personality that would have carried him far if he had gone another way. His decision to die like a man and his promise to walk calmly up the death-steps. His playing jazz records and asking for flowers even in the death cell.

She later called this kind of thinking "blank-out." She even admitted it above: "But that does not interest me."

Should we ever talk about the quiet nobility, the brilliant pronouncements, the "limitless daring and his frightful sense of humor," and the "calm, defiant attitude," etc., etc., et. of Osama bin Laden on his videos, then say his terrorist murders "do not interest us"? How would that sound?

To me that sounds really messed up.

Think as you will. I believe when Rand was young, she screwed up and went off into la-la land for a while. Read the accounts of Hickman that are in the links. It's much, much worse than our discussion here conveys. Including the part about public perception. Those are facts and they are on record.

Rand's puppy-love bias totally distorted in her notes what really happened. But she eventually worked it out and wrote some great books.

Thinking this does not diminish my admiration for her and her achievements one whit.

Michael

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Let me ask you guys something: if you had a 23 year old neighbor who thought Bundy was real cute and should be lauded for never apologizing for his killings. What would your opinion be? Are you judging AR differently? Does, in your mind, the fact that she wrote some fabulous books exempt her? I'm curious.

What would be your opinion of me if I snuck into her house and read her diary?

--Brant

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Rand toyed with the idea of depicting an anti-hero?

Where on earth did you get that idea?

Hickman was to be a model for a hero as per her own notes. And on a personal level, she felt "my involuntary, irresistible sympathy for him" (her words, not mine--Journals, pp. 43-44).

I used the term anti-hero fairly broadly, Wikipedia includes Faust, Batman, and Clint’s Man with No Name as anti-heroes. A great anti-hero is Alex from A Clockwork Orange, Hickman makes me think of him, but I seriously doubt Rand could ever have gone that far. And I don’t think Anthony Burgess was crazy or degenerate for writing that book, the character needs to be that way for the story to work. In Rand’s case, we don’t even have the book to look at.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-hero

Should we ever talk about the quiet nobility, the brilliant pronouncements, the "limitless daring and his frightful sense of humor," and the "calm, defiant attitude," etc., etc., et. of Osama bin Laden on his videos, then say his terrorist murders "do not interest us"? How would that sound?

Not long after 9/11 Dinesh D’Souza was on Politically Incorrect and said something about how the hijackers were brave. It went over like a lead balloon, and I think the show was cancelled soon after because of the reaction. He said the wrong thing at the wrong time. On the other hand, Rand wrote in a private journal.

Edited by Ninth Doctor
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Dennis,

This issue is not whether Rand kept her feelings private or not. They are now public. And private or public does not change her feelings.

The issue is whether or not Objectivists should defend Rand's admiration for Hickman as something in Rand that is OK. I don't think it's good to do that and I don't think it's OK. It was not good thinking nor was it spiritually good on any level on Rand's part. Call it her conceited jerk stage. Surely there were other antisocial beings around her to admire back then. Not a sociopathic pedophile murderer who mutilated and dismembered children--for profit, to boot. Where did she leave her brains at that time? And her soul?

The only good I see in this is that Rand, amazingly just like every human being on earth, faced her own temptations and boneheaded ideas and she made choices. She came out of that very dark place by choice. That's a good thing and I consider coming out of it to be a mark of good character.

But denying the sheer vileness of Hickman on almost every level and the weirdness and wrongheadedness of Rand admiring him makes Objectivists look like cultists to the outside world. And, personally, I think it is a trap for people who admire Rand where it is really easy to blank-out some serious facts.

I think the best argument to Rand-critics who harp on this is, "Yeah, she screwed up when she was young. She lost it for a while. Youthful indiscretion. So what? Her public does not resonate on that level when reading Atlas Shrugged. It's not even on the radar."

Michael

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I think the best argument to Rand-critics who harp on this is, "Yeah, she screwed up when she was young. She lost it for a while. Youthful indiscretion. So what? Her public does not resonate on that level when reading Atlas Shrugged. It's not even on the radar."

I understand your view, I think you know where I’m coming from, and I don’t want to beat this to death. The other answer to the harpists is: she had an idea, other authors have had similar ideas, and made them pay off. She didn’t, it just didn’t work for her. Fill in the blank as to why it didn’t work for her.

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I think the best argument to Rand-critics who harp on this is, "Yeah, she screwed up when she was young. She lost it for a while. Youthful indiscretion. So what? Her public does not resonate on that level when reading Atlas Shrugged. It's not even on the radar."

I understand your view, I think you know where I'm coming from, and I don't want to beat this to death. The other answer to the harpists is: she had an idea, other authors have had similar ideas, and made them pay off. She didn't, it just didn't work for her. Fill in the blank as to why it didn't work for her.

Guys:

It is interesting. I also recently found out about the Hickman "incident." Like Ginny and Tony. There insights helped me as did yours.

As I said above, it did not surprise me.

I agree with both Micheal and Dennis' last posts.

Adam

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Dennis,

This issue is not whether Rand kept her feelings private or not. They are now public. And private or public does not change her feelings.

The issue is whether or not Objectivists should defend Rand's admiration for Hickman as something in Rand that is OK. I don't think it's good to do that and I don't think it's OK. It was not good thinking nor was it spiritually good on any level on Rand's part. Call it her conceited jerk stage. Surely there were other antisocial beings around her to admire back then. Not a sociopathic pedophile murderer who mutilated and dismembered children--for profit, to boot. Where did she leave her brains at that time? And her soul?

The only good I see in this is that Rand, amazingly just like every human being on earth, faced her own temptations and boneheaded ideas and she made choices. She came out of that very dark place by choice. That's a good thing and I consider coming out of it to be a mark of good character.

But denying the sheer vileness of Hickman on almost every level and the weirdness and wrongheadedness of Rand admiring him makes Objectivists look like cultists to the outside world. And, personally, I think it is a trap for people who admire Rand where it is really easy to blank-out some serious facts.

I think the best argument to Rand-critics who harp on this is, "Yeah, she screwed up when she was young. She lost it for a while. Youthful indiscretion. So what? Her public does not resonate on that level when reading Atlas Shrugged. It's not even on the radar."

Michael

Exactly. Rand didn't stay there, in the same state she had to be when she wrote the portion of her journals re Hickman. This is the same lady who in her maturity consistently and eloquently maintained that there should be no initiation of force - something which condemns Hickman.

Bill P

Edited by Bill P
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WE The Living is my absolute favorite. But -- could you be referring to the now deleted section where she's talking about the blood of people being spilled by those that can - just because they can? Don't mean to be picky, Brand, but this narcissictic streak obviously bugs me.

Reading some of your posts, Ginny, it seems you are quite invested in what kind of person Ayn Rand was. Primarily, such an investment should be in oneself.

--Brant

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Hardly, Brant. You have no idea what kind of a person I am and you couldn't guess. If it irks you that I won't make excuses for warped thinking, so be it.

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Hardly, Brant. You have no idea what kind of a person I am and you couldn't guess. If it irks you that I won't make excuses for warped thinking, so be it.

? I've read every word you've written on this thread, Ginny, and you're telling me I have no idea about the you you've been so forcefully presenting to us? That doesn't mean I wasn't wrong in my previous post. If I am I take your word for it and I apologize.

--Brant

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