"Fact and Value," the Ayn Rand Institute, and the Anthem Foundation


Robert Campbell

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I realize that ND never took this kind of statement seriously. Still, for the record, let's hear out Leonard the First and Only, declaring what counts as Objectivism and what does not.

From Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand, page xv, bolding added by me:

Because of my thirty years of study under her, and by her own statement, I am the person next to Ayn Rand who is most qualified to write this book. Since she did not live to see it, however, she is not responsible for any misstatements of her views it might contain, nor can the book be properly described as "official Objectivist doctrine." "Objectivism" is the name of Ayn Rand's philosophy as presented in the material she herself wrote or endorsed.

Ayn Rand didn't write "Fact and Value." She didn't endorse it.

Right?

Robert Campbell

Let's state it again as before: In the May 1968 issue of "The Objectivist" (pub. Oct. 1968), Ayn Rand explicitly endorsed the works of Nathaniel and Barbara Branden up to her break with them as consonant with her philosophy. (During the NBI years NB was the only person who could speak for her respecting her philosophy without any qualification whatsoever.) For instance, Barbara Branden's course of ten lectures on "Principles of Efficient Thinking" is just as Objectivist as anything Ayn Rand ever wrote.

--Brant

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Irfan Khawaja has posted comments on two news stories about John Allison taking over at Cato:

http://www.newsobserver.com/2012/07/07/2181346/john-allison-talks-about-plans.html#comment-580247527

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2012/07/kochs-cato-john-allison.html

The New Yorker story is remarkably sloppy. It took me 10 seconds on Google to verify that Allison serves on the ARI Board. "John Allison Ayn Rand": top hit is the Wikipedia article on him, which links to the Wikipedia article on ARI, which states that he is on the Board.

Robert Campbell

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What I found interesting was "'Atlas Shrugged' as required reading" in the NY article. That novel has sold millions not required as reading. Not required has a lot to do with what the novel is all about. I can see 20 years from now with declamations that AS was required reading and I got the Cliff Notes instead or I couldn't stand it and the author and I've not been standing them since college. 1000 pages of agony. Etc.

--Brant

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Yes, Professor Campbell (#27), as of last summer, John Allison was a Board member of the Ayn Rand Institute. He made presentations at OCON 2011.* In one of those, he mentioned some projects in academia that he and Charles Koch had co-sponsored in the past. . . .

John Allison has supported Stephen Hick’s Center for Ethics and Entrepreneurship.*

Yaron Brook and John Allison answered questions at OCON 2012 on Allison’s new post at CATO. I was unable to attend.

Psssst. Objectivist political philosophy is a type of libertarianism.*

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

PS

The most recent issue of The Objective Standard (Summer 2012) includes an interview with painter Brian Larsen. Within that interview, Mr. Larsen remarks:

My biggest client by far has been BB&T, a bank headquartered in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Until about two years ago, its CEO was John Allison, who many Objectivists will be familiar with.

He’s an amazing person. I met him briefly at a conference one year and was very impressed by him and was quite excited when, through the Cordair gallery, he approached me about using Heroes . . . on the cover of the bank’s annual report.

. . . The next year, they used Young Builder. The third year they decided to commission an original painting to use on their annual report. And every year since then, including these past two years, when they’ve had a new CEO, they’ve continued to do that.

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

PPS

Ninth (#30), notice also:

a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, i

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

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

Concerning Professor Campbell’s vulgar and bizarre #32, I would have thought any regular reader of these sites would have understood I was making a joke by my “Pssssst” remark, a joke against the view of Rand on the issue, of Peikoff and Schwartz and . . . and Bidinotto on the issue.

Stephen,

. . .

As for whether Objectivism could really be categorized under the "genus" of "libertarianism," that would depend on whether there is such an animal. Despite the number of trees that have fallen to produce books about that "ism," I find no essential agreement on its definition (other than vague, undefined, floating abstractions about "individual liberty"), and certainly none on its component principles. Nominal endorsement of an undefined, ungrounded "freedom" or "liberty" is something that has been made by virtually everyone across the political spectrum. The devil is in the details, and on those details libertarians seem forever at odds. If they can't agree on what they believe, it seems to me problematic that Objectivists (or anyone else) could be reliably described as "species" of "libertarians."

--Robert Bidinotto

Beyond that part of #32, I should perhaps mention that I do not share the kinds of feelings Professor Campbell expresses when he says repeatedly “The question is whether so-and-so knows that Objectivist political philosophy is a species of libertarianism and whether so-and-so is willing to admit it in public.” In the late sixties, I was in my university library one day reading, I was reading Nathaniel Branden saying (in some extended interview, as I recall) that homosexuals were necessarily mentally ill and of low self-esteem. Yes, that was a pain that one first time. But I simply never had and still don’t have any need to get him to see differently on that issue and to admit he was wrong in public. I had my own truth and my own life and happiness. A few years later, it hurt the first time I learned of Rand’s response to our Libertarian Party. We had been working and working spreading her political philosophy, and there she was responding “You guys are dirt.” I never had any need to get her to change her mind and to admit her error in public. I just don’t have those feelings. I don’t mean to say everyone should be the same about such feelings.

I discontinued my financial contributions to ARI, then to David Kelley’s organization, a good many years ago now.* I’ll leave their various statements, inconstant or constant, on their various issues to them.

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Psssst. Objectivist political philosophy is a type of libertarianism.*

I agree, but this point has been the source of strenuous objections over the years, particularly from the likes of Peter Schwartz. To this day ARI, hmm how to put it, highlights the few statements Rand herself made against the libertarians of the seventies and early eighties; one wonders if they hold that these statements apply to Gary Johnson, Thomas Sowell, and many many others.

http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=education_campus_libertarians

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Psssst. Objectivist political philosophy is a type of libertarianism.*

I agree, but this point has been the source of strenuous objections over the years, particularly from the likes of Peter Schwartz. To this day ARI, hmm how to put it, highlights the few statements Rand herself made against the libertarians of the seventies and early eighties; one wonders if they hold that these statements apply to Gary Johnson, Thomas Sowell, and many many others.

http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=education_campus_libertarians

"Schwartz is a pimp. Today I learned it was Peikoff all along."

--Brant

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Psssst. Objectivist political philosophy is a type of libertarianism.*

No shit, Sherlock.

Once again Stephen breathlessly imparts to his interlocutors what they already know, in a tone suggesting that he alone has had the good fortune to come into possession of such inside information.

The question is not whether Stephen Boydstun knows that Objectivist political philosophy is a variety of libertarianism.

It's not whether I know this.

It's not whether Brant knows this.

It's not whether ND knows this.

It's not whether MSK knows this.

It's not whether Irfan Khawaja knows this.

For that matter, it's not whether Barbara Branden or Douglas Rasmussen or David Kelley or George Smith or Chris Sciabarra or Ed Younkins or Stephen Hicks or Charles Murray or any of thousands of other people know this.

We all know that Objectivist political philosophy is a species of libertarianism, and so do they.

The question is whether Leonard Peikoff knows it, and is willing to admit it in public.

Whether Peter Schwartz knows it, and is willing to admit it in public.

Whether Robert Mayhew knows it, and is willing to admit it in public. (You know, Mayhew rewrote Rand's spoken answers, and made sure to include in his compilation every negative thing he could find that she'd said about libertarianism.)

Whether John Allison, as a member of ARI's Board of Directors, knows it and is willing to admit it in public.

Whether Don Watkins knows it, and is willing to admit it in public. (Don Watkins is a junior ARIan who, when he was still willing to participate in the same forum with the likes of me, declared that there was no mystery behind the expulsion of David Kelley. Kelley's sin was, case closed, "the sanction of libertarianism." This seems to have been a most satisfactory answer, because Watkins subsequently became a paid employee of ARI, which he remains.)

Now maybe Stephen will inform us as to the urgent need for personal and institutional hypocrisy and high-handedness, without which no one at ARI would be able to produce anything worthwhile from an intellectual standpoint.

But most of us would be inclined to think that such worthwhile production as has come out of ARI has come in spite of the hypocrisy and the high-handedness, not because of them.

Robert Campbell

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John Allison has supported Stephen Hick’s Center for Ethics and Entrepreneurship.*

To be exact, through the BB&T Foundation, John Allison supported:

Some card-carrying ARIans, such as Brad Thompson here at Clemson University.

Some Randians who are not affiliated with ARI, such as Stephen Hicks at Rockford College and Ed Younkins at Wheeling Jesuit.

Some business professors with a generally free market orientation who were willing to use Atlas Shrugged in their classes and didn't mind getting financial support in return. For instance, the folks in the College of Business at UNC Charlotte.

Now I once got a fund-raising mailing from ARI that referred to the BB&T program as though it was a wholly owned subsidiary. But of course it wasn't, and isn't.

The fact remains that Cato is a libertarian think tank (unless John Allison is proposing to redirect it away from libertarianism...) and, according to official pronouncements that have never been retracted or modified by the top people at ARI, the "sanction of libertarianism" remains a grave offense.

Graver, one has to presume, than taking issue with David Harriman over Galileo Galilei's precise thought process.

Robert Campbell

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The Objectivist rejoinder to

Psssst. Objectivist political philosophy is a type of libertarianism.*

No shit, Sherlock.

Once again Stephen breathlessly imparts to his interlocutors what they already know, in a tone suggesting that he alone has had the good fortune to come into possession of such inside information.

The question is not whether Stephen Boydstun knows that Objectivist political philosophy is a variety of libertarianism.

It's not whether I know this.

It's not whether Brant knows this.

It's not whether ND knows this.

It's not whether MSK knows this.

It's not whether Irfan Khawaja knows this.

For that matter, it's not whether Barbara Branden or Douglas Rasmussen or David Kelley or George Smith or Chris Sciabarra or Ed Younkins or Stephen Hicks or Charles Murray or any of thousands of other people know this.

We all know that Objectivist political philosophy is a species of libertarianism, and so do they.

The question is whether Leonard Peikoff knows it, and is willing to admit it in public.

Whether Peter Schwartz knows it, and is willing to admit it in public.

Whether Robert Mayhew knows it, and is willing to admit it in public. (You know, Mayhew rewrote Rand's spoken answers, and made sure to include in his compilation every negative thing he could find that she'd said about libertarianism.)

Whether John Allison, as a member of ARI's Board of Directors, knows it and is willing to admit it in public.

Whether Don Watkins knows it, and is willing to admit it in public. (Don Watkins is a junior ARIan who, when he was still willing to participate in the same forum with the likes of me, declared that there was no mystery behind the expulsion of David Kelley. Kelley's sin was, case closed, "the sanction of libertarianism." This seems to have been a most satisfactory answer, because Watkins subsequently became a paid employee of ARI, which he remains.)

Now maybe Stephen will inform us as to the urgent need for personal and institutional hypocrisy and high-handedness, without which no one at ARI would be able to produce anything worthwhile from an intellectual standpoint.

But most of us would be inclined to think that such worthwhile production as has come out of ARI has come in spite of the hypocrisy and the high-handedness, not because of them.

Robert Campbell

Objectivism is a whole ball of wax--if you go back to Rand (1968)--so you can't rend out the politics and call it a type of libertarianism. If you insist on that--I do--you are assaulting Peikoff's fortress.

--Brant

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. . .

Psssst. Objectivist political philosophy is a type of libertarianism.*

. . .

Ninth (#30), notice also:

a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, i

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

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

Concerning Professor Campbell’s vulgar and bizarre #32, I would have thought any regular reader of these sites would have understood I was making a joke by my “Pssssst” remark, a joke against the view of Rand on the issue, of Peikoff and Schwartz and . . . and Bidinotto on the issue.

Stephen,

. . .

As for whether Objectivism could really be categorized under the "genus" of "libertarianism," that would depend on whether there is such an animal. Despite the number of trees that have fallen to produce books about that "ism," I find no essential agreement on its definition (other than vague, undefined, floating abstractions about "individual liberty"), and certainly none on its component principles. Nominal endorsement of an undefined, ungrounded "freedom" or "liberty" is something that has been made by virtually everyone across the political spectrum. The devil is in the details, and on those details libertarians seem forever at odds. If they can't agree on what they believe, it seems to me problematic that Objectivists (or anyone else) could be reliably described as "species" of "libertarians."

--Robert Bidinotto

Beyond that part of #32, I should perhaps mention that I do not share the kinds of feelings Professor Campbell expresses when he says repeatedly “The question is whether so-and-so knows that Objectivist political philosophy is a species of libertarianism and whether so-and-so is willing to admit it in public.” In the late sixties, I was in my university library one day reading, I was reading Nathaniel Branden saying (in some extended interview, as I recall) that homosexuals were necessarily mentally ill and of low self-esteem. Yes, that was a pain that one first time. But I simply never had and still don’t have any need to get him to see differently on that issue and to admit he was wrong in public. I had my own truth and my own life and happiness. A few years later, it hurt the first time I learned of Rand’s response to our Libertarian Party. We had been working and working spreading her political philosophy, and there she was responding “You guys are dirt.” I never had any need to get her to change her mind and to admit her error in public. I just don’t have those feelings. I don’t mean to say everyone should be the same about such feelings.

I discontinued my financial contributions to ARI, then to David Kelley’s organization, a good many years ago now.* I’ll leave their various statements, inconstant or constant, on their various issues to them.

Sorry, but I better add some further words on biographical sequence and my resulting relationships to three organizations to avoid misunderstanding. Readers who chased down all my links above are likely familiar with most of this, and much beyond this, and probably should skip this.

I spoke of “our Libertrian Party.” I have not been a member or supporter of LP since 1984. I have never been an anarchocapitalist. As I recall, it was in the spring of 1972 that I noticed a flyer pasted in the art history building on my campus, which flyer summoned anyone interested in forming a Libertarian Party in Oklahoma. I gave them a call. (I had learned the name and idea libertarian somewhat earlier through the philosophy journal The Personalist, edited by John Hospers.) They were Frank and Carolyn Robinson (of OKC), a couple of their acquaintances, and their hopes. Frank soon attended the national founding convention in Denver. Hospers became our presidential candidate. Frank reported that Hospers had called Rothbard and had gotten the latter to agree to stop attacking this nascent organization. Rothbard and associates would later join and, by ’76, gain great influence in the party. It would have been some months, maybe many, after the ’72 election, when I learned that Rand condemned us for our political and educational initiative.

Politics takes a strong stomach. At the founding convention for the Oklahoma party, there were perhaps as many as eight people in attendance. One couple there was primarily interested in the issue of capital punishment, and they particularly insisted that we put an endorsement of capital punishment into our state party platform. We did, and my lover Jerry immediately resigned from the party. He knew that though the rest of us sitting around the table held against the death penalty, on the grounds Rand-Branden had set out, the majority had voted the way they did to keep that couple with us. The same sort of no-more-stomach would finally happen to me too a dozen years later, in 1984, in Chicago. I was out. I kept one momento, my original membership card in the national party, signed by Susan Nolan in 1972. That was it.

In 1985 or so, I did read Peter Schwartz’ essay against libertarianism. It contained at least one correct thought about participation in political action, as I recall. But his representation of what was libertarianism was fantastical. He blurred the distinction between the political philosophy and the political party (an ideological political party, to be sure). John Hospers had completed a book surveying libertarianism by the time of his campaign, and we in the party had promoted it. Beyond that work were three cornerstone works many of us in the party and in the libertarian intellectual movement more generally had read or were reading: Atlas Shrugged; Man, Economy, and State (Rothbard’s big economics book); and Anarchy, State, and Utopia (Nozick). This was the triangle at the center of the political philosophy libertarianism in the ’70’s and early ’80’s (and perhaps to this day). Within that triangle were those of us who subscribed to Rand’s/Nozick’s conception of the propriety of government and those, such as Rothbard, who would replace monopoly government with private competing agencies of law enforcement. The core was not core in Schwartz’ representation. His essay was a smear job, continuing the smears by Rand.

I had been a major financial contributor to the Ayn Rand Institute in their early days (it didn’t take all that much to be “major” back then), up to the mid-nineties. I ceased financial support to ARI when I learned that behind the scenes the institution had never left off denigrating the character of David Kelley, which is incorrect and unjust. In more recent years, ARI continues that ugly campaign more openly. I left off financial donations to David Kelley’s organization a decade or so ago when it finally sunk in with me that it had become mostly dedicated to cultural change and political advocacy. Those were not my priorities, and their political priorities were not mine. Sorry to run on. Anyway, that’s the way it went down with those three institutions with me. I still purchase products of Ayn Rand Institute and products of David’s organization.

Hmmm. One more point. So far as I know, Kelley, like Bidinotto, never concurred with the view that Objectivist political philosophy is a species of libertarianism. That was not a deal-breaker for me because during the years I was a financial supporter of ARI and of Kelley’s organization, thumping against libertarianism was not a major focus in the endeavors of either organization. Apparently, that still goes for both.

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I did see the humor. But if you distill the anger from Robert's post, he is correct about Peikoff and co.

I am happy to relate that Nathaniel Branden had completely dropped his animadversion to homosexuality in the 1970s. I state this not just respecting what he wrote and publicly said, but from listening to him speak to various clients in the psychotherapy group of his I was a part of in NYC for a year (1976-77). He did the same thing in the "Intensives" he started in 1977 which I attended in Washington D.C., NYC and Los Angeles. He recognized he had hurt people by various things he had said about various things centered on psychology in his NBI years and that he had been wrong.

--Brant

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In the late sixties, I was in my university library one day reading, I was reading Nathaniel Branden saying (in some extended interview, as I recall) that homosexuals were necessarily mentally ill and of low self-esteem. Yes, that was a pain that one first time. But I simply never had and still don’t have any need to get him to see differently on that issue and to admit he was wrong in public. I had my own truth and my own life and happiness.

As Brant has noted, Nathaniel Branden did change his mind about homosexuality, and admitted, in public, on numerous occasions, that he had been wrong about it.

I personally recall such statements at two different events in 1978.

Meanwhile, Leonard Peikoff still can't admit that he has been right about that issue for many years, because he would then have to admit that Ayn Rand got it wrong.

Peikoff even got Bob Mayhew to cut a spoken answer out of Ayn Rand Answers, so her actual view would look less negative than it really was.

A few years later, it hurt the first time I learned of Rand’s response to our Libertarian Party. We had been working and working spreading her political philosophy, and there she was responding “You guys are dirt.” I never had any need to get her to change her mind and to admit her error in public. I just don’t have those feelings. I don’t mean to say everyone should be the same about such feelings.

Maybe Stephen should have had "those feelings."

If not about Ayn Rand herself, then about Leonard Peikoff and Peter Schwartz and lesser members of the crew carrying her condemnatory attitude toward libertarians forward and trying to perpetuate it.

Admitting error isn't necessarily bad for a person.

Meanwhile, I have observed that Stephen goes ballistic when anyone criticizes the quality of any of Leonard Peikoff's arguments.

Would he be impressed with the admonition that others "just don't have those feelings"?

Robert Campbell

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Hmmm. One more point. So far as I know, Kelley, like Bidinotto, never concurred with the view that Objectivist political philosophy is a species of libertarianism. That was not a deal-breaker for me because during the years I was a financial supporter of ARI and of Kelley’s organization, thumping against libertarianism was not a major part of the focal endeavors of either organization. Apparently, that still goes for both.

I've known Robert Bidinotto since 1973. His views on libertarianism were formulated in the mid-1970s and have been largely settled since then. It's also been more than 30 years since I agreed with him on the issue. Neither do I agree with Robert on the doctrine of the arbitrary assertion, or on the advisability of refusing to read Jim Valliant's book. I am not aware, however, of anyone ever having been expelled from any organization for taking issue with Robert about any of these matters.

I would have to look around for a clear statement from the latter-day David Kelley concerning Objectivist political philosophy and libertarianism. In any event, his take on Objectivist permits working with people with whom one may disagree philosophically. He has been willing to work with libertarian organizations since he founded IOS—a consistent policy, going back more than 20 years. Where did TAS get Ed Hudgins from? I have never seen, on any of my visits to the IOS/TOC/TAS website, a string of quotations from Ayn Rand, denouncing libertarianism in the most ringing of tones. ARI continues to display such a string; ARIans continue to invoke such statements in support of Kelley's past expulsion; but persons of high enough rank in ARI have apparently received a covert dispensation to engage with libertarian organizations when they see organizational advantage in it.

Robert Campbell

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ARIans continue to invoke such statements in support of Kelley's past expulsion; but persons of high enough rank in ARI have apparently received a covert dispensation to engage with libertarian organizations when they see organizational advantage in it.

Robert Campbell

I think a lot has to do with money and the general cultural status of people involved. Brook, for example, seems to do an excellent job raising money for ARI. Other than that he seems to be best at advocating for Israel. I'm not necessarily complaining about that, but the philosophy itself seems to be receding into a dimmer and dimmer light with these folk. I speculate that it's now for intellectuals and they aren't.

--Brant

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Branden was still knocking homosexuals at least as late as Judgement Day (1989), wherein he insinuates strenuously (whether or not accurately I have no idea) that Allan Blumenthal is gay and that this is one of the reasons readers ought to dislike him.

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Branden was still knocking homosexuals at least as late as Judgement Day (1989), wherein he insinuates strenuously (whether or not accurately I have no idea) that Allan Blumenthal is gay and that this is one of the reasons readers ought to dislike him.

I think it was much more knocking A.B. than gays. What's interesting is all the repressed anger N.B. tapped into writing that memoir without understanding what his writing reflected that way. It's interesting because a few of his sentence completions would have clued him in. He obviously didn't use his premier technique on himself. The highly refined aesthetic world A.B. and his wife inhabit naturally contains a relative excess of homosexuals than you'll find in the general population. Their own sensibilities are highly refined and you'd quickly see that seeing him up close and personal. (I don't recall ever seeing his wife in person, though I probably did.) If people like them are china in a china shop, then Nathaniel was like a bull in a china shop. (This overstates the matter both ways for the Blumenthals are not fragile people and Nathaniel wasn't a bull.) As a young man and deep into his middle age, N.B. was incredibly dynamic and productive and if he didn't blow right by you he could blow right over you all the while hardly noticing. The world moved excruciatingly slow for him and he was chronically out of synch with it and most of the people in it. He was impatient. Kind of ironically, you never sensed this when he was working with you in therapy. He came with his total attention to you.

--Brant

as you can see I'm much more than a reader of N.B. and am friendly with him and his wife whom I hope to visit in LA soon

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Branden was still knocking homosexuals at least as late as Judgement Day (1989), wherein he insinuates strenuously (whether or not accurately I have no idea) that Allan Blumenthal is gay and that this is one of the reasons readers ought to dislike him.

I disagree about the insinuating that Allan is gay, thus with the "therefore" as well. What Branden said was that it disturbed him that so many of the people in the Blumenthals' sub-circle were gay. He did outright refer to a thought of his in which he called Allan a "eunuch."

Are you aware than Allan has been married, to the same woman, for years and years? Allan and Joan were already married before the NB/AR affair started, though I don't know in exactly what year they married. They met through both being brought into "the Collective," Joan by Barbara and Allan by Nathaniel. Joan had previously been married to Alan Greenspan for a short time, which I think is how Greenspan got brought into the group. That marriage was annulled.

Possibly you do know about Allan's and Joan's long-time marriage and are indicating that Allan might be gay nonetheless. There are gays who marry women. I never picked up any indications of Allan's being gay, instead some counter-indications. As Brant said in the post above, Allan and Joan are artistically inclined people, and there are many gays in artistic circles.

Allan taught explicitly in the psychology courses I had with him in the first half of the '70s -- three, his regular course twice and a course for people professionally interested in psychology -- that homosexuality involved an element of immorality because of involving pretense. He believed back when that he could cure homosexulaity. There was a tragic occurrence when one of Joan's models, Gordon, I forget his last name, a homosexual who wasn't succeeding at being "cured," committed suicide.

Allan had changed his viewpoint on homosexuality by the time he gave the first pair of courses after his break (1977) with Rand and his and Joan's returning to NYC after first moving for awhile to Palm Springs.

Ellen

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Branden was still knocking homosexuals at least as late as Judgement Day (1989), wherein he insinuates strenuously (whether or not accurately I have no idea) that Allan Blumenthal is gay and that this is one of the reasons readers ought to dislike him.

Peter,

If you're referring to the "eunuch" remark, I never took this to imply that Allan Blumenthal was gay.

I took it to imply that Nathaniel Branden was still highly resentful of him, for a variety of reasons. There is powerful resentment, in the same memoir, directed at Leonard Peikoff and others.

[Added July 22, 2012: Sorry, I indeed mixed up Blumenthal with Allan Gotthelf... So the remainder of this post is irrelevant.]

A friend of mine attended one of Blumenthal's lectures—on love in Plato and Aristotle—around 1976. He was still taking an anti-gay position at the time, though he would change his mind not too long afterward.

Robert Campbell

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A friend of mine attended one of Blumenthal's lectures—on love in Plato and Aristotle—around 1976. He was still taking an anti-gay position at the time, though he would change his mind not too long afterward.

Robert Campbell

Regarding the lecture, I suspect you're mixing up Allan Blumenthal with Allen Gotthelf. I think the latter gave such a lecture, though I don't know when. I'd be surprised if Allan Blumenthal knew enough about Plato and Aristotle to talk on the subject.

Ellen

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I was referring to the eunuch remark and the effeminate-like-an-English-schoolboy remark and the remark that nearly everybody he and his wife knew was gay. I didn't say Blumenthal was (neither did Branden in any way you could pin down), so the fact that he has long been married poses no problems for me. The great majority of people are straight, so that's my default assumption.

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I remember Allan Blumenthal coming to Kerry O'Quinn's very small upper west-side NYC apartment 1971 or 1972 to see a movie Kerry was showing. He had his living room made up as a little movie theater where he showed films he liked in subscription series, if I remember correctly. I went to a few of those. One was a film he made himself featuring a helicopter landing and taking off from the top of the Pam Am building. Helicopters using it as a heliport stopped after a tragic accident. A copter went on its side and a rotor blade crashed to the street. You can see such helicopter scenes in an old Clint Eastwood film made mostly in NYC (1968) in which he plays a New Mexico sheriff come to town to take some criminal back. The guy gets loose and chased down in a climatic action about and around the Cloisters. Kerry was gay, but I didn't know it then. Last I knew he lives in LA wanting to make a film out of Anthem, which anyone can do and no one has.

--Brant

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

PPS

Ninth (#30), notice also:

FYI when you edit a post by way of replying to a subsequent post, there’s a good chance the person you’re replying to isn’t going to notice. Why not just do a new post? It’s just by chance that I noticed this material now, days later.

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I'm in process of looking in Judgment Day for the passages about Allan Blumenthal mentioned in posts above. I haven't found those yet. Meanwhile, here's some other relevant material re Joan Mitchell (later Joan Mitchell Blumenthal), Leonard Peikoff, and Alan Greenspan.

A particular statement, which I'll bold, in the part about Leonard Peikoff is of interest in relation to Peikoff's ultimate "doctrine of the arbitrary" and to the eventual ditching of truth as correspondence in The Logical Leap. Beware, incidentally, of exact specifications of dates and time-spans. Nathaniel made numerous errors with those. And he might be evaluating these people more unfavorably in retrospect than he evaluated them at the time.

Judgment Day, pp. 128-129

[bold emphasis added]

Two people who had entered our lives in New York helped me focus this issue ["social metaphysics"] further. Both were to become members of our intimate circle.

One was a childhood friend of Barbara's, Joan Mitchell, an aspiring painter and a student of art history. She was twenty-three years old, blonde, petite, nervously arrogant one moment, shyly reticent the next. Joan struck me as affected, mannered, overly concerned with her image. I wanted to like her not only because Barbara did but because she did seem enthusiastic about The Fountainhead and wanted to learn about Ayn's philosophy. I wanted to expand our circle and wanted to believe she was a promising convert. Moreover, I believed I did sense in her that one important trait: a deep dissatisfaction with "things as they were," a longing, however inarticulate, for something "more," perhaps for ecstasy. "Joan," Barbara said to me, "is a much better person than she has ever let herself be -- or perhaps than she herself knows." I did grow fonder of Joan as she embraced our philosophy, but I remained concerned with the fact that a woman could simultaneously see herself as an advocate of reason, individualism, and independence, and yet have a morbid preoccupation with favorably impressing other people.

Leonard Peikoff represented a far greater challenge to my understanding because I considered his a better mind. He had visited us in New York a number of times and in September 1953 he moved there with the intention of studying philosophy for a year, after which he would decide whether he wished to return to his pre-med studies in Winnipeg or remain in New York and pursue a career in philosophy. He was now twenty years old, of medium height, a somewhat frail build, and a coltish way of walking. When he spoke, his voice often had a nervous, almost hysterical quality. Leonard cared for nothing but philosophy -- and for this, I warmed to him. But I could see almost immediately that in his consciousness there was no "objective reality," no sense of reality as such, apart from what anyone thought or believed; there were only Ayn's ideas and the ideas of his professors, and when Ayn was talking he couldn't retain the viewpoint of his professors, and when his professors were talking he couldn't retain the perspective he had learned from Ayn. I watched him, observed his struggles, tried to help him -- and tried to understand how someone so intelligent could be so lacking in autonomy. Sometimes my frustration was greater than my compassion. I would say to him, "Leonard, never mind what so-and-so thinks -- never mind what Ayn or I think -- what do you think?"

In an interview he gave in June 1982, in The Intellectual Activist, he acknowledged this problem in his own understated way:

[i've copied the text exactly as it appears, including a punctuation and a wording error. All the bracketed inserts and the ellipsis are Branden's.]

"The problem [arose] when I went on for a Ph.D. and got bombarded with pragmatism and logical positivism and all the rest of modern philosophy. [His memory fails here; the problem merely became more pronounced at this time.] My method of approach became modern despite myself, because of the influence of graduate school. Then [Ayn] and I would have long talks, and I sometimes couldn't grasp her point because I was looking at it from the perspective of modern philosophy. I could name you many issues that took me years to clarify in my own mind. But they are all technical philosophic issues -- the arch example being the analytic-synthetic dichotomy, which I finally published an essay on once I got it clear. It took years before I could understand that question. Another example was her theory of concepts -- it took me many years to be convinced of that... I had the problem both ways. Her philosophy made it harder for me to grasp what I was taught at NYU, and vice versa. I was in the position of trying to retain what I knew of her ideas so as not be brainwashed at school.

The ease with which Leonard could be "brainwashed" was bewildering and disturbing to Ayn, Barbara, and me. I said to Ayn, "He has the rationality and independence to select your ideas, even if they keep slipping between his fingers. I mean, if it isn't rationality and independence, what is it? But then why is he so easily overwhelmed, where is his judgment, why can't he retain anything from one conversation to the next?"

I was struggling with the phenmomenon of people who seemed to have very little independent contact with reality, apart from what others thought, felt, or believed -- until, late in the year, I believed I found the beginning of an explanation. This was the concept of social metaphysics. In my first paper on the subject, I wrote:

Here's the paragraph about Alan Greenspan's entering the picture:

Judgment Day, pg. 131

One of the most interesting people to join our circle was a man to whom Ayn initially took a strong dislike.

He was an economic analyst, employed by the National Industrial Conference Board. For nine months he was married to Joan Mitchell, which was how we got to know him. He was tall and solidly built, with black hair, dark horn-rim glasses, and a propensity for dark, funereal suits. He was somberness incarnate, looking chronically weary, resigned, and unhappy. He was twenty-six years old. Barbara, Ayn, Frank, and I once encountered him, with Joan, coming out of an elevator. "He looks like an undertaker," Ayn commented. The man's name was Alan Greenspan.

Ellen

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Helicopters using [the top of the Pam Am building] as a heliport stopped after a tragic accident. A copter went on its side and a rotor blade crashed to the street.

I was working at the Lippincott offices just down the block when that happened. The street corner was one that people from our offices often crossed. One of our top authors had crossed the corner on the way to an appointment at our offices moments before the accident. The helicopter blade severed a woman's body as it fell.

--

Larry and I went to a number of shows at Kerry O'Quinn's also.

You and I were both in the audience at the FHF talk where Ayn apologized to Judge Lurie for not waiting till he repeated the question. And at Leonard Peikoff's opening lecture in the first course he gave after the break. We might have been in the same small room one or more times at Kerry O'Quinn's.

Ellen

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Kerry did make a magical place out of almost nothing. He did the ceiling like one of the old time great, huge movie palaces with stars and such. I think I still have all his mailings. They'd be interesting to look at again. I know what one of those old theaters looked like because as a soldier in San Antonio 1965 I wandered into one. It was almost empty and I couldn't use the bathroom downstairs because it was inhabited by old homosexuals trying to approach me for sex. Then, lo and behold, out onto the stage walked Jimmy Stewart in town to promote the place and his next movie because he was a friend of the theater owner. Can you believe it?! I doubt if there were 20 people in the place.

--Brant

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