The Truth About Ayn Rand: Origins of Objectivism

[Jonathan]

The article explains her hypocrisy in the section titled "A Predilection for Faking Reality Began Early."

"Hypocrisy is the claim or pretense of holding beliefs, feelings, standards, qualities, opinions, behaviors, virtues, motivations, or other characteristics that one does not in actual fact hold. It is the practice of engaging in the same behavior or activity for which one criticizes another. In moral psychology, it is the failure to follow one’s own expressed moral rules and principles" (Wikipedia, my bold).

When I wrote #17 I thought of "hypocrisy" as meaning the last two sentences, but not the first. I see now that faking reality satisfies the first sentence. Anyway, 'Ayn Rand faked reality, but was a magical novelist' as the subtitle, or no subtitle, would have been better.

I think Murray's point is that Rand did fail, in the examples listed, to follow her own expressed moral rules and principles, and she engaged in behavior for which she very vocally criticized others.

J

[Jonathan]

Oh, sure, if you want a recap of two recent bios. I'm mostly objecting to calling Rand a "philosophical hypocrite" and "magical novelist."

Why do you object to her being called a "magical novelist"?

That the article is full of Rand truths doesn't support these two ideas. Rand's blatant hypocrisy was in her personal life.

Murray addresses that:

"But there’s no getting around it: taken as a whole, there is a dismaying discrepancy between the Ayn Rand of real life and Ayn Rand as she presented herself to the world. The discrepancy is important because Rand herself made such a big deal about living a life that was the embodiment of her philosophy. 'My personal life is a postscript to my novels,' she wrote in the afterword to Atlas Shrugged. 'It consists of the sentence: And I mean it. I have always lived by the philosophy I present in my books—and it has worked for me, as it works for my characters.' As both books document, that statement was self-delusion on a grand scale."

J

"Magical" to me are demons and funny wizards walking through walls and flying about engaged in semi-mortal combat[TM]. (The phrase is my invention.)

As for the rest, I simply slice the pie differently than Murray. Derivatively, I get easily bored over things I thought of myself years ago. In his defense he wasn't writing for me but contra that my ego doesn't get buttered up so nutz to that. Rand was good at buttering up the egos of her readers. All they had to do was agree with her about just about anything and everything to be embraced by her magical reality.

--Brant

(oops)

Ah. I took Murray to writing about the magical effect that the novel has on him and other readers, and not to be claiming that it contains unicorns or leprechauns. The novel's aesthetic effect is marvelous and entrancing. It doesn't contain talking gumdrops and flying trolls.

J

[Jonathan]

I read the article when it came out.

I thought that it just came out. Maybe you're thinking of a similar but previous piece by Murray that you disagreed with?

I haven't re-read it, but as I recall it, I don't feel as Murray does and don't think he was "pretty gentle and generous." He seemed to disapprove of the fact of the affair...

I didn't get that impression from this article. He writes that Rand's action prior to the beginning of the affair -- at which point she and Branden informed their spouses of their intentions -- was one example of her not faking reality. Murray doesn't express his own opinion of affairs and such, but only holds Rand to her own standards.

...and I think he described Rand as "deeply flawed." If Rand was deeply flawed, what's left for moral monsters?

Ellen

I don't recall his calling her deeply flawed, but if he did, I think there's plenty left for moral monsters. Like "moral monsters." There's quite a significant difference between a flaw, no matter how deep, and a monstrosity.

J

[Jonathan]

Deeply powerful strikes me as more accurate than flawed.

I don't think it's either-or. Rand was powerfully creative AND flawed. She did some really shitty things to the people closest to her. And she was a brilliant creator. She was also sometimes very patient and generous with others, and other times, not so much. Sometimes she didn't give a rat's ass what others thought of her or her work, but other times their judgments were more important to her than her own. She was all of these things, not one or the other.

J

[Brant Gaede]

Deeply powerful strikes me as more accurate than flawed.

I don't think it's either-or. Rand was powerfully creative AND flawed. She did some really shitty things to the people closest to her. And she was a brilliant creator. She was also sometimes very patient and generous with others, and other times, not so much. Sometimes she didn't give a rat's ass what others thought of her or her work, but other times their judgments were more important to her than her own. She was all of these things, not one or the other.

J

In context my use of "flawed" meant the "deeply flawed" I was referring to. Now, is it your opinion Rand was deeply flawed? Who's letting her off the mere "flawed" hook? Even Peikoff, I've read, has remarked on her sometimes unjust anger toward him (and I suppose, just anger too).

--Brant

[Ellen Stuttle]

I read the article when it came out.

I thought that it just came out. Maybe you're thinking of a similar but previous piece by Murray that you disagreed with?

It's the same article.

Note that a line at the bottom says: "This review first appeared in the Claremont Review of Books."

The date of the original appearance isn't given, but that issue of the Claremont Review was the Spring 2010 issue.

The issue probably was published on June 1, 2010. A colleague of Larry's sent him an email copy of the review on June 2, 2010.

Links to the original review now go to a page has been removed notice. However, the article was cited at least three times previously on OL. Merlin linked to it on June 7, 2010, on both the thread about Heller's book (*) and the one about Burn's (*).

Barbara posted the entire last section on October 2, 2010 (*).

The last section is flattering to Rand as novelist. The thrust of the rest of the article, despite some opening favorable comments, is stated in a paragraph you quoted - a supposed "dismaying discrepancy between the Ayn Rand of real life and Ayn Rand as she presented herself to the world."

The last section begins:

[emphasis added]

Why then has reading these biographies of a deeply flawed woman - putting it gently - made me want to go back and reread her novels again?

Since fortunately I have a hard copy printout of the email copy Larry was sent, I was able to look to see if the section heads appeared in the original. They did not. Neither did the header line.

The original title and header were:

Who is Ayn Rand?

A review of Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right by Jennifer Burns and Ayn Rand and the World She Made, by Anne C. Heller

These have been changed to:

How Ayn Rand Captured The Magic Of American Life

Ayn Rand was a philosophical hypocrite, but a magical novelist.

by Charles Murray

Oct. 16, 2014

The Federalist

Headers have been added for each of the three section breaks:

Charm and Self-Delusion

A Predilection for Faking Reality Began Early

Yet Ayn Rand Trumpeted Some Timeless Truths

Verb tenses have been adjusted in the paragraph beginning "And yet for 27 years after her death [...]," and "in 2009" has been added after "within weeks of each other."

Otherwise the text is the same.

You're correct that there isn't a statement explicitly disapproving of the affair as such. However, I think that his way of opening the paragraph is indicative - and he quite neglects to mention the developments between the active affair and Rand's 1968 statement.

All in all, I think that Murray paints an excessively negative picture, with nothing of sympathy and extenuation. Except for features of the last section, I didn't like or agree with the slant of the piece when I first read it. Rereading it, I'm reminded of the details of why it left me feeling that it's semi a "hit piece."

Ellen

[Guyau]

So far as I see, OL has no notice of John Oliver’s bit on Ayn Rand. It’s a negative bit, without trotting out Rand’s personal life and without the pretentiousness of the Murray bit. (Mr. Murray writes: “The huge truths she apprehended and expressed were as American as apple pie.” Not. Ethical egoism and axiomatic foundational, systematic philosophy are foreign to that old pie, and without those elements of Rand’s Fountainhead and Atlas, those philosophical novels and her philosophy are gutted.)

Ayn Rand – How Is She Still a Thing?

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I just tried to read Murray's entire article and got bored at the part where he gives his litany of examples of Rand "faking reality."

Technically, if you are using on-off contextless binary thinking, I suppose from a you could call it that. But this judgment coming from a man who wrote an entire book on human achievement is breathtaking. (See here: Human Accomplishment: The Pursuit of Excellence in the Arts and Sciences, 800 B.C. to 1950.)

Here's what I mean.

For anyone to achieve anything creative, they have to go through a three-part process:

Inner vision (idea) --> Transmutation --> Manifestation in reality

The word transmute has been fascinating me for quite some time and I have written a lot of notes for future works about it. It basically means changing the substance (form, etc.) of one thing into another. For instance, there's the ancient quest for the philosopher's stone, which was supposed to transmute lead into gold.

Humans literally transmute ideas into external reality when they act on ideas. In this context, transmuting means acting. And humans mean you and me. And, by extension, that includes Ayn Rand.

Does that mean ideas themselves are not reality? Hell no. Ideas exist. We all have them. That's the material we transmute into another form and substance.

Rand lived in all three contexts. At times she was in the ideation stage, at times in the transmutation stage, and at times in the realization stage. All three represent different parts of reality.

You would think Murray would understand this. But no...

He believes that when Rand was projecting a vision so she could actually try to do what was necessary to make it manifest, she was "faking reality." He believes, at least in the examples he gave, that when she saw what she thought ought to be, or when she acted to make that happen (or encourage it to), she was not seeing what was right in front of her eyes.

That's bullshit.

Rand did not look at a worm and call it a tree.

To comment on one of Murray's examples, it's true that Rand looked at Frank as a hero. She realized he could achieve great things when and if he put his mind to them. But she did not pretend Frank already did those things. I think she got stuck in the transmutation stage with Frank because his dreams collided with hers, but that is not the same as faking reality.

One may disagree with her judgment of Frank, but that does not mean she was faking that judgment, or faking her perception so it would fit her judgment. She believed in her vision of Frank and had good reasons to focus on it while brushing aside the parts that didn't fit. That's the way she did art and that's what is meant by a "stylized life."

This is not rooted in being blind. Or blanking out. Or posturing. It is rooted in seeing and choosing. I have no doubt Rand knew Frank farted like all humans do. But I seriously doubt she "faked reality" and claimed he never did. Instead, she judged that as not important. She kept her focus on some parts, discarded the rest and acted to make this manifest. (This, I believe, extends to Frank's drinking.)

This selective process, this stage where external reality does not yet fit the vision, is the transmutation stage for a creator. It is not a faking stage.

By Murray's standard, anyone who has a vision of something he or she wants to do or change is faking reality.

Bah...

I can only think of one reason to call this process "faking" for a thinker as well versed in human accomplishment as Murray.

It's slant.

And it's not pretty.

Michael

[syrakusos]

So far as I see, OL has no notice of John Oliver’s bit on Ayn Rand. It’s a negative bit, without ....

For a compare and contrast consider the treatment of Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir. Wittgenstein's Poker delicately dashes past his sexuality and Karl Popper's because only that much is necessary to understand the story. Popular histories of the Manhattan Project mention the fact that Leo Szilard traveled with a large cache of various currencies in his suitcase because through the 1930s he feared what we now see as history. It is curious only because apparently no other physicist in his cohort did that. It was like Niels Bohr's riding motorcycles. But we don't dwell on it, or produce comedy skits for network television.

The Truth About Quantum Mechanics can be found in the sordid lives of these marginally insane college professors. And how do you pronounce Niles or Neles Bohr? *laughtrack*

I had to google "John Oliver"; but it was only because of years of second-hand exposure that I did not have to search for "The Daily Show." Thanks to MSK, I even know who Glenn Beck is.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

So far as I see, OL has no notice of John Oliver’s bit on Ayn Rand. It’s a negative bit, without trotting out Rand’s personal life and without the pretentiousness of the Murray bit. (Mr. Murray writes: “The huge truths she apprehended and expressed were as American as apple pie.” Not. Ethical egoism and axiomatic foundational, systematic philosophy are foreign to that old pie, and without those elements of Rand’s Fountainhead and Atlas, those philosophical novels and her philosophy are gutted.)

Ayn Rand – How Is She Still a Thing?

Stephen,

I saw this a few days ago. I think it's very funny. Here it is embedded:

http://youtu.be/oSk-C7W0L28

However, with a slant like that, people like Oliver will still be asking why Rand is still a thing decades from now. So long as they ignore Rand's real appeal and present cartoon-like images of her essence, they will always be wondering.

Besides, I don't care what people say, Mark Cuban rocks.

Michael

[Ellen Stuttle]

I didn't watch the YouTube (post above). (YouTube flicker is hell on my eye troubles.)

But, gee whiz, where did that photo come from?

She looks so young and lively!

Ellen

[merjet]

I didn't watch the YouTube (post above). (YouTube flicker is hell on my eye troubles.)

You won't miss much if you only listen.

[Guyau]

.

Oops!

[Brant Gaede]

Rand would have hated the video but appreciated the differentiation with conservatives.

In the 1960s they mostly refused to talk about her except for a short sneer. Now they can't stop talking about her, but the sneering has been leavened with some unacknowledged admiration. They are still too ignorant to really get into the philosophy and can only turn out these superficial videos and such.

--Brant

yeah, it's funny and, true enough, the kind of bad publicity that's really good publicity: they even showed a copy of Anthem

[Brant Gaede]

.

Not sure which photo you mean, Ellen.

The one you see when you don't watch the video--the one with the mikes right in front of her face on the embed.

--Brant

[Guyau]

.

I see. That's in 1947, from the HUAC testimony.

[Brant Gaede]

There are younger photos, of course, much younger, including the obverse of the one heading OL's front page which appeared on the back of dust jacket of The Fountainhead.

--Brant

[Jonathan]

To comment on one of Murray's examples, it's true that Rand looked at Frank as a hero. She realized he could achieve great things when and if he put his mind to them. But she did not pretend Frank already did those things.

I always thought that the things that Rand wrote about Frank suggested that she did pretend that Frank was already very accomplished and was worthy of having a woman like her as his wife. She spoke of him as if he were a real -- an already fully developed and realized -- Howard Roark, and not just a person who might or could possibly be a Howard Roark at some point in the future if he tried really hard.

Also, if Frank could be judged as heroic because Rand believed that he could achieve great things if he put his mind to them, then why wasn't Patrecia (or anyone else) judged with the same generosity? Why was Branden accused of being guilty of all sorts of sins against rationality and Objectivism, and of insulting Rand, when choosing Patrecia -- a lowly, unworthy shopgirl -- as a romantic partner? Patrecia quickly became more accomplished than Frank had in their mutual profession of acting.

How long did Frank have until he should have put his mind toward achieving great things? Was any other person on the planet given such slack when it came to moral judgment of their productivity or ambition?

I think she got stuck in the transmutation stage with Frank because his dreams collided with hers, but that is not the same as faking reality.

I don't think that Frank necessarily had dreams to collide with hers. From what I've read of him, he wasn't interested in being anything special. He seemed to have no problem being comfortable and average and living off of Rand's financial success. He didn't have any sort of burning passion to be creative or productive, but rather just seemed to want to sort of carelessly enjoy life without any pressures or responsibilities.

One may disagree with her judgment of Frank, but that does not mean she was faking that judgment, or faking her perception so it would fit her judgment.

I think that it does mean that she was faking reality in that instance.

She believed in her vision of Frank and had good reasons to focus on it while brushing aside the parts that didn't fit. That's the way she did art and that's what is meant by a "stylized life."

I think that the concept "stylized life" applies only to oneself. If you attempt to stylize someone else's life, you're necessarily faking reality, since you are not the owner of that life.

This is not rooted in being blind. Or blanking out. Or posturing. It is rooted in seeing and choosing. I have no doubt Rand knew Frank farted like all humans do. But I seriously doubt she "faked reality" and claimed he never did. Instead, she judged that as not important. She kept her focus on some parts, discarded the rest and acted to make this manifest. (This, I believe, extends to Frank's drinking.)

This selective process, this stage where external reality does not yet fit the vision, is the transmutation stage for a creator. It is not a faking stage.

In common parlance, what you're referring to is called "fake it until you make it." And that would be fine if Rand's vision of Frank wasn't so far removed from reality (if he was engaged in faking it until making it rather than she doing it in his stead), and if she hadn't judged all others by much higher standards than those she used to judge Frank.

When I first read her praise of Frank, I assumed that he must have been something like a world-renowned surgeon or financial wizard. The reality was that he wasn't driven. He wasn't faking it until he made it. She was the only one doing that, and as a surrogate faker.

By Murray's standard, anyone who has a vision of something he or she wants to do or change is faking reality.

I don't see Murray as saying anything like that.

If someone wanted to be, say, a singer, and he suddenly started behaving and dressing like famous, successful singers while taking lessons and booking small-time gigs, I don't think that Murray would say that that would be an example of faking reality.

I think that he would say that you are faking reality if you claim that your spouse is a giant in the music industry, despite the fact that the spouse is not performing, is not taking lessons or trying to book gigs, isn't even dressing or behaving like a singer, and isn't even remotely interested in having a singing career, but is sitting at home indulging in other hobbies and being a househusband.

Anyway, what about Rand's public attacks on the Brandens? What about her false accusations against them? Are those not legitimate examples of Rand's faking reality? After all, Rand new that the accusations were not true. She knew that she was keeping from her readers the real reason that she was excommunicating the Brandens and smearing them.

J

[Brant Gaede]

If Rand was Dagny and Frank was Galt, please note who was the major Rand AS hero who really didn't do much of anything, who said, "I didn't do anything." Rand explained Frank, did she not, by stating he was on "strike"? In that sense the entire novel hung on her perception of Galt as Frank. Look at all Dagny did. Maybe post-AS was to be her Galt's Gulch retirement after three decades of writing with everything finally falling into place sense-wise. If so, no wonder she jumped at the idea when he said, "That would make a good novel."

--Brant

[Ellen Stuttle]

Anyway, what about Rand's public attacks on the Brandens? What about her false accusations against them? Are those not legitimate examples of Rand's faking reality? After all, Rand new that the accusations were not true. She knew that she was keeping from her readers the real reason that she was excommunicating the Brandens and smearing them.

I disagree about her knowing that the accusations weren't true. Also with the implication that all of the charges were false. The authority-flaunting charge against Nathaniel, I think was very true, and that the authority-flaunting had been going on much longer than Ayn realized. I saw an example myself in late 1963, and I've heard reports of many other examples. As to the irrationality of the document Nathaniel gave to Ayn, that's something we can't judge, not having access to the document. She, however, might have honestly judged it differently from another reader's judgment. As to the financial exploitation, I think that she believed the charge at the time, but I think that she should have corrected it later. I've always considered her slam at Barbara just a thoroughly uncalled for nasty swipe.

Regarding, the "real reason" for the break, I assume you mean Ayn's discovery that Nathaniel was having an affair with Patrecia. That's what I used to think was the real reason, but my view has been modified by the contents of Ayn's diaries. Nathaniel didn't reveal in his memoir - and possibly Barbara didn't know - that Nathaniel was telling Ayn for several years that he was impotent while in fact he was engaged in an affair, and that he told Ayn repeatedly that he had no romantic feeling for Patrecia. I've come to think that outrage at being persistently lied to was the biggest factor in Ayn's explosion. She'd had very strong reactions to being lied to ever since she was a child, and he knew that.

~~~

About Ayn's faking reality in regard to Frank, I think that there's a fine line between willful blindness and outright faking, and that she might have been more on the willfully blind side of the line. I think that she loved him, one way or the other, and that her romanticizing him was something she needed to do in an effort to stay motivated to write.

Ellen

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Jonathan,

I just don't see the things you do. (And God knows I am no adherent of a PARC-like view of Frank.)

I don't see it, especially since Rand usually said Frank was on strike when asked about his lack of great achievements. She was aware he had not done anything great. In fact, I didn't see anything in your post where you indicated that she did claim he had performed such accomplishments.

Do you have any quotes where she claimed he revolutionized the world in some manner?

But maybe I'm faking reality.

Michael

[merjet]

Ellen, thanks for your comments in post 45, but I believe you could answer Jonathan's questions more fully. Did Ayn Rand "fake reality" to the readers of 'To Whom It May Concern' with not even a vague mention of her affair with N. Branden and trumped-up charges against both Brandens?

[Brant Gaede]

Anyway, what about Rand's public attacks on the Brandens? What about her false accusations against them? Are those not legitimate examples of Rand's faking reality? After all, Rand new that the accusations were not true. She knew that she was keeping from her readers the real reason that she was excommunicating the Brandens and smearing them.

I think what we have here is not-being-in-your-face involved in that situation at that time to whatever extent from students of Objectivism to those principals. I take it you were not there or wrapped up in any significant way with that sub-culture. For myself it wasn't that I could figure it out so well at the time, but that I could carry information forward for years and decades until I could arrive at a better and more mature understanding--one that continues to evolve. If I had made your statement, it would be facile and disingenuous. It only grabs onto the surface of these events. I could do the same and damn Branden, not Rand. There are supporting facts--debris--floating all around--whatever you want to support. Or, damn them both. As history, however, it's time to let go of the morality--our passing moral judgment on these folk--that was then involved for more dispassionate objectification. Regarding the sinning, it hit a bigger audience than if they had been strictly private parties. Most people have similar events in their lives of varying severity which hardly anyone else could ever care about.

Rand had two philosophies and she visited both on Nathaniel Branden, Nietzschean and Objectivism. The contradiction enabled her to twist her relationship with him--and others--into a lie to get him into her bed. For his own reasons he went along with it. This might have worked if the affair had ended after a few years but it took on its own life as it powered the lives of these two and Nathaniel went off the tracks with his lies to her on top of the lie of their personal relationship. He might have told Ayn what was going on--he wanted an affair within their own affair, etc.--but he had created a professional stake in teaching her philosophy. She could have pulled the plug on that which is what eventually happened.

The philosophy of Objectivism really started in the formal sense with Galt's speech, a waterfall of moralizing, hectoring asseverations. Metaphorically we could say her Nietzschean philosophy was her alligator brain and Objectivism the modern part layered on top, albeit connected if not well integrated. Rand couldn't have well understood what was going on with the contradiction and Branden was riding a tiger. Rand manipulated Branden into the affair and he returned the favor and he was so powerful in his own right he created and maintained the Objectivist movement and sub-culture. In that, it was right for the times; it was a times that blew up in 1968, coincidentally the same year Vietnam blew up in President Johnson's face. There was no more need and use for it put against the broader culture, in contradistinction, as the left abandoned all intellectual pretense and went with force. I've always marveled how they both happened that year. 1968 was the key year, for Objectivism and the country as a whole. Faith was lost in Rand-Branden and in the country's leaders. It was the start of the crude rebirth of American individualism with the baby still coming out of the womb today.

Will it survive and thrive? I'd have to live at least another lifetime to know the answer to that, but I know where I'm placing my bet.

--Brant

[Guyau]

Merlin, #47 is a neat question for the ethical theory of Objectivism. To ordinary folks, it is plain that in an omission of such a major reason for the professional breakup (and I agree that the omission was within the prerogative of the parties in their autonomies over the intimacies of their personal identities) Rand was not faking or shaking reality to herself or faking her own sense of reality one iota. And that is a flaw in the canonical Objectivist rationale for the virtue of honesty, wherein the ultimate base of honesty is only one’s own interest.

[Guyau]

Cathy, the following was written by Marsha Enright in Ayn Rand Explained (2012) in the section “Ayn and Frank.” . . .

Except for the orthodox, almost every writer seems to see Rand’s marriage to Frank O’Connor as a puzzle because he wasn’t a genius inventor or a ground-breaking artist or titan of industry, like her heroes. They tend to assume she must have deluded herself in order to explain why she was so deeply in love with him [and held him to be] her model for Roark [and] the other heroes. More than a few fall back on his looks for an explanation, presuming she projected a heroic character into him because he looked like her fictional ideal. But is such a delusion possible to maintain for decades? Is that enough to explain a lifetime’s relationship?

Few seemed to have known him well except the Brandens, and can their views be impartial? She cast them out and denounced them. One would only expect they would have had a hard time being evenhanded about her. And their relatives and friends—the “Collective” of Jewish intellectuals who formed her inner circle—would they be objective as to what Frank was like? Not only would their cultural differences and expectations have been vast (he was an Irish-American by background), but also by their own accounts, they were boisterously obsessed with ideas, barely paying attention to the quiet artist in the corner.

Is there another way to view him, his character, and his relationship with Ayn? I haven’t seen any commentator consider the idea that, as a sensitive artist, not especially intellectual, and not a genius, but intelligent and sharp about what was happening in the world, he could have had a towering moral character, worthy of The Fountainhead’s dedication, and of her love and loyalty for fifty years. As she said after he died, “he was so good” (Donahue interview, 1979). . . .

“Our principles fix what our life stands for, our aims create the light our life is bathed in, and our rationality, both individual and coordinate, defines and symbolizes the distance we have come from mere animality. It is by these means that our lives come to mean more than what they instrumentally yield. And by meaning more, our lives yield more.” –Robert Nozick