The Passion of James Valliant’s Criticism, Part III


Neil Parille

Recommended Posts

The Passion of James Valliant's Criticism, Part III

by Neil Parille

Introduction

In The Passion of James Valliant's Criticism, Parts 1 and 2, I demonstrated that James Valliant consistently misrepresents Nathaniel Branden's memoirs and Barbara Branden's biography. I also pointed out his double standards, failure to name sources, and failure to acknowledge evidence that undermines his case. Since the publication of these essays, I have continued my research into The Passion of Ayn Rand's Critics ("PARC") and here discuss some additional problems as well as Valliant's attempt to defend the book.

Barbara Branden's Meeting With Ayn Rand In 1981

In The Passion of Ayn Rand ("PAR"), Barbara Branden writes that she met Rand in 1981 and wrote Rand a letter thereafter. (PAR, pp. 397-400.) In PARC, Valliant says that Rand never saw Barbara Branden again after their split, implying that she made this meeting up. (PARC, p. 94.) I contacted the Archives of the Ayn Rand Institute ("ARI") in February 2008 and they confirmed that there is evidence that this meeting took place. Specifically, although the letter mentioned by Branden was not found, Cynthia Peikoff (who was Rand's secretary in 1981) refers to the letter and the meeting in the forthcoming 100 Voices: An Oral History of Ayn Rand, by Scott McConnell.(1) When I informed Valliant that the archives confirmed that the meeting occurred, he conceded that "no one ever told me that there was no meeting,"(2) apparently admitting that he made no efforts to verify PARC's insinuation that Branden fabricated the meeting.(3)

Valliant contends that this is a minor mistake. However, Rand's meeting with Barbara Branden in 1981 puts into perspective her concealment of Nathaniel Branden's affair with Patrecia Scott. Although Rand denounced Barbara Branden in 1968 for alleged dishonesty in other matters, her willingness to meet with Branden years later is evidence of how Rand saw her and Nathaniel Branden's respective roles in the split. After all, it was Barbara Branden who told Rand about the affair. (PAR, p. 345.) It further undercuts Valliant's constant reference to "the Brandens" as if they were one person. As we shall see below, it also raises substantial questions about Valliant's diligence as a researcher.

Another Mistake: The Surprise Party From Hell

In PARC, James Valliant says that the surprise party to celebrate the publication of Atlas Shrugged was thrown by Random House (the novel's publisher). I pointed out that this contradicts the Brandens' accounts, which say they or the Collective threw the party. When I wrote my critique of PARC, I did not have the Sures recollections of Rand published in 2001 as Facets of Ayn Rand. The ARI recently made the book available on the web. The Sures confirm that the Collective threw the party. When I questioned Valliant on this mistake in 2007, he claimed he based his account on "various sources." Yet PARC does not mention any sources (anonymous or otherwise) concerning this party. Given the agreement of the Brandens and the Sures on this event, we may confidently conclude that the Collective threw the party. Valliant's "sources" are in error, or perhaps he didn't have any sources and simply misread the books.

Valliant is apparently unable to read his own book as well. On November 3, 2007, he said on RichardDawkins.net that, "[o]f course, PARC attributes no such malevolence to them [the Brandens] for throwing a party." Yet he says in PARC that:

Rand was not seeking to "control" anyone's context here but her own. It was the Brandens who were part of the effort to "control" Rand's context through deception—Rand was merely objecting to the deception. (We shall see that this will not be the last time they will attempt to do this, merely one of the less important times.) (PARC, p. 50.)

He says later in PARC that "[w]hether it was a little deception—like the surprise party—or a big one--like Branden's intellectual fraud—the Brandens insist on their right to manipulate Rand with their lies." (PARC, p. 109.)

Yet Another Mistake: The Change To Penthouse Legend

In Part 2 of this essay, I noted that Valliant claims that in 1973 Philip and Kay Nolte Smith "changed the dialogue in their production of Penthouse Legend without authorization from Rand." He describes the Smiths' conduct as a "systematic and personal betrayal." (PARC, p. 75.) Valliant's only source for this is Jeff Walker's book The Ayn Rand Cult ("TARC"). However, Walker quotes Kay Smith as saying that she made "unauthorized changes to a few lines of dialogue for a public performance." (TARC, p. 35.) This obvious discrepancy was first brought to Valliant's attention by Dr. Chris Sciabarra in July 2005. Valliant responded on Sciabarra's blog:

In the few instances where I rely on Walker, such as Hospers' report on Rand's difficult youth and the "break" with Kay Nolte Smith, I do have other, corroborative sources, providing independent, if anonymous, verification. Unlike Ms. Branden, I do not rely on anonymous sources as my only source for something, but I will allow multiple, credible sources to remain unnamed where they serve as mere corroboration. Walker is cited because he is the only published source for them. Hospers has confirmed this testimony, if not in published sources, and the reported account of the Smith break, involving changes to the dialogue of a play by Rand they were producing, has been in circulation for many years, indeed. I should have, perhaps, included the fact that the changes made to Rand's play were removed before its opening (although ~ how ~ Rand discovered these changes in the production remains the essence of the charge), but my own anonymous sources here are credible contemporaries to the event and their reports to me long pre-date Walker's book. (Emphasis added.)

As I pointed out, Philip Smith and Dr. George Reisman (an Orthodox Objectivist no longer affiliated with the ARI) confirmed post-PARC that the change was a minor change to one or two lines of the play's last (or one of its last) performances. According to Philip Smith, Kay Smith told Rand that she made the change. Yet Valliant tells us that the changes were made before the play's opening and implies that there was something underhanded about the way the Smiths (allegedly) made and concealed these changes. In spite of my repeated requests, Valliant refused to disclose what his sources told him. When pushed, Valliant responded that, "(i)t WAS a minor change as far as I am concerned . . . ." How this squares with what he said on Sciabarra's blog is anyone's guess. Even more strange, Valliant recently contended that the public sources (specifically George Reisman(4)) confirm that the changes were made prior to the play's opening.

James Valliant's Sources

These three examples constitute mistakes by Valliant. Post-PARC he told his critics that he had independent sources for two of these events, the surprise party and the changes to Penthouse Legend (although none are mentioned in his book). I think we can conclude that Valliant has misread his published source and that his anonymous sources (to the extent they exist) are not credible. In light of his mistake concerning the 1981 meeting, readers are entitled to ask what efforts he made to verify his claims, notwithstanding his occasional (and non-specific) statements that former associates of Rand have told him that the Brandens' description of Rand is erroneous.

Are The Brandens' Books "Useless"?

Valliant's professed evaluation of the Brandens' works is quite negative. The books are "useless to the serious historian." (PARC, pp. 85-86.) "Where the Brandens are our only source, the topic must be marked with a giant asterisk and an attached footnote reading, 'Highly dubious.'" (PARC, p. 128.)

Valliant, however, honors this more in the breach than in the observance. Let me give three examples, taken almost at random:

1. "O'Connor had been the first to recognize Mr. Branden's true character, as well, it seems. Ms. Branden reports that in 1968, just before Rand was to learn the truth, O'Connor ' . . . said . . . [t]hat man [Nathaniel Branden] is no damn good . . . . ' Ironic that it took Frank O'Connor to point out that Rand was projecting imaginary virtue--on Branden!" (PARC, p. 161.) Valliant's only source is PAR.

2. "Ms. Branden relates that Rand was herself quite close to her brother-in-law Nick O'Connor--who, according to Ms. Branden, Rand believed was gay. (P.A.R., pp. 100-101)." (PARC, p. 405 n. 7.) Again, PAR is the only source.

3. "PARC does not challenge the Blumenthals' story or the idea the Blumenthals were quoted correctly [in PAR] -- I presume they would have challenged Ms. B[randen] by now about it if they were not." (James Valliant on Objectiblog, August 6, 2006.)

Now, in fairness to Valliant, he does say in the preface to his book that "the inclusion of material from either of the Brandens' biographies in no way implies that any of the events related actually took place, or, if they did, that the Brandens are believed to be credible sources regarding those events." (PARC, p. 8.) Even here, Valliant doesn't follow his own strictures. The example concerning Frank O'Connor's insight is obviously taken by Valliant as true, because in the next line Valliant tells us that "[t]his is not the only evidence of O'Connor's perceptiveness." (PARC, p. 161.) Evidence? What happened to the giant asterisk and the attached footnote?

Likewise, it is correct that a biography or memoir might be generally unreliable, but certain accounts have a "ring of truth." If Valliant seeks to use the Brandens' books in this limited way, it is incumbent on him to tell his readers why he finds some uncorroborated accounts of the Brandens accurate and others not. He rarely does this. As I've shown, his main criterion of reliability (with occasional exceptions) is whether something helps his case.(5) Thus, the Brandens' criticism of each other is credible, their criticism of people other than Rand is credible, even other witnesses who sometimes criticize Rand (such as the Blumenthals) are at other times credible. It is only when the Brandens criticize Rand (or Leonard Peikoff) that their accounts become suspect.

Thou Shalt Not Speculate

Valliant claims that there is too much speculation in the Brandens' books. I should have highlighted more the fact that Valliant is the king of speculation.

To take the first of three examples pertaining to Ayn's and Frank O'Connor's relationship, Barbara Branden says that Frank O'Connor told her that he wanted to leave Rand, "'But where would I go? . . . What would I do? . . .'" (PAR, p. 262.) Here is Valliant:

The manifest absurdity of believing that the husband of a very successful author--whose crucial role in that author's own work had been publicly professed by Rand--would be left penniless from a divorce cannot be ascribed to O'Connor but to Ms. Branden. (Even in those days, husbands of high-income wives could--and did--get attractive settlements.) (PARC, pp. 151-52.)

Barbara Branden was an eyewitness and I see no reason to doubt her recollection. Even if what Valliant says is true about husbands receiving generous settlements (a claim he doesn't document), O'Connor might not have known this or might have felt there was something wrong about asking for money from Rand.

As a second example, after quoting from Rand's notes for Atlas Shrugged from 1949 where Rand writes that Rearden takes pleasure in the thought of Dagny having sex with another man, Valliant writes that "this particular account of male psychology is almost certain to be an expression of her husband's own psychology." (PARC, p. 166, emphasis added.) This note isn't even about O'Connor. As a final example, take this piece of speculation on p. 167 of PARC (emphasis added):

O'Connor almost certainly believed that his wife was an exceptional genius and a woman intensely loyal to her values. He may well have appreciated his wife's complex emotional--and intellectual--needs. Possessing such a sensitive and daring soul [it's now a fact] may well have given him the capacity to embrace his wife's quest for joy, a capacity obviously not shared by the Brandens. (And he surely could have left Rand without much fear, had he truly objected to the situation.)

The only direct evidence bearing on the affair's effect on O'Connor are the reports of Nathaniel Branden and Barbara Branden that it hurt him, at least at times. To the extent that one need speculate, experience indicates that these types of relationships cause hurt and even the innocent party may feel "conflicted." Even Valliant has to admit that "[w]hether they were always truly happy together, especially in light of Rand's affair, can be questioned . . . ." (PARC, p. 157.)

Alan Greenspan

On my SOLO Passion weblog, I pointed out that the back of PAR contains a favorable blurb from Alan Greenspan ("A fascinating insight into one of the most thoughtful authors of this century."). Greenspan sided with Rand after the break and knew Rand well from the early 1950s until she died in 1982. I said that this constituted Greenspan's "vouch[ing]" for the book. I was taken to task by Valliant and his supporters. After all, Greenspan said only that the book was a "fascinating insight" into Rand. Diana Hsieh and Gus Van Horn (both supporters of the ARI) apparently read Greenspan's blurb the same way I did. According to Mr. Van Horn:

Diana Hsieh notes of Greenspan that, "He endorsed Barbara Branden's smear of a biography with a laudatory quote printed on the back cover. (You can see it for yourself on Amazon.)" So much for Greenspan remaining loyal to Ayn Rand on a personal or philosophical level.

Conclusion

Additional research into The Passion of Ayn Rand's Critics further demonstrates that it is an unreliable critique of Nathaniel Branden's and Barbara Branden's works. In particular, Valliant's claim that he has reliable sources which undercut the Brandens' account of events is highly suspect.

March 16, 2008

Endnotes

1. Reference assistance courtesy the Ayn Rand Archives, A Special Collection of the Ayn Rand Institute.

2. As readers of the thread can see, Valliant repeatedly refused to answer my simple question of what efforts he made to verify that the meeting took place. It was only after I informed him that the Archives documented Branden's meeting that he admitted that no one told him the meeting didn't take place.

3. After I pointed out Valliant's mistake concerning the 1981 meeting, Valliant wrote: "Now, as to how the meeting may have gone down... (the most suspicious part of all)?"

4. George Reisman said on his blog in 2006 that "[t]oward the close of the play's run, an actor prevailed upon this young woman to allow him to alter one of Ayn Rand's lines in one of the play's last performances."

5. For example, Barbara Branden's recollection that O'Connor wanted to leave Rand is inaccurate; but her recollection that O'Connor denounced Nathaniel Branden as "no damn good" is accurate. In addition, as I mentioned in Part 2 of my critique, Valliant accepts that Rand and Nathaniel Branden secured the consent of their respective spouses, but the Brandens are the only sources for this claim.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 51
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

Neil,

Thanks again for demolishing more of Valliant's shoddy scholarship and just plain crap. It is now time to start questioning the honesty of his scholarship. It appears he simply made up stuff on purpose to bash the Brandens and he knew it was false when he did it.

I thought ARI at least had some kind of scholarly seriousness in endorsing this book. I guess not...

Michael

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It is now time to start questioning the honesty of his scholarship. It appears he simply made up stuff on purpose to bash the Brandens and he knew it was false when he did it.

I thought ARI at least had some kind of scholarly seriousness in endorsing this book. I guess not...

Michael

Umm, I'm preaching to choir here but the ARI has not written an honest word since its founding. Just read their op-eds, they're completely based on lies and misinformation. Frankly, based on the indirect critique Niel is making, I'm surprised by its honesty and scholarship. I mean, they haven't made up any new continents, people, or deities; this is a step up for them.

Thanks again to Niel and everyone else going through this book.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Umm, I'm preaching to choir here but the ARI has not written an honest word since its founding. Just read their op-eds, they're completely based on lies and misinformation.

Umm, I think you sound like James Valliant, except that your target is ARI rather than the Brandens.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Umm, I'm preaching to choir here but the ARI has not written an honest word since its founding. Just read their op-eds, they're completely based on lies and misinformation.

Umm, I think you sound like James Valliant, except that your target is ARI rather than the Brandens.

Over the last few years I've read maybe 30 or 40 of the o-eds/speeches etc. All have been crap, if you want I can walk you through them.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Over the last few years I've read maybe 30 or 40 of the o-eds/speeches etc. All have been crap, if you want I can walk you through them.

I've read probably that many, too. Some were bad and some were good, but not all bad like you say.

Maybe you can pick a couple "least bad" ones and explain why they are "crap."

Edited by Merlin Jetton
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Umm, I'm preaching to choir here but the ARI has not written an honest word since its founding. Just read their op-eds, they're completely based on lies and misinformation.

Umm, I think you sound like James Valliant, except that your target is ARI rather than the Brandens.

Over the last few years I've read maybe 30 or 40 of the o-eds/speeches etc. All have been crap, if you want I can walk you through them.

You can give an example if you want. The basic problem, however, is that to be ARI active you have to kowtow to the Peikoff powers that be. Consequently, all you have to say gets tremendously discounted by anyone who understands this. Unfortunately, many do not know this. The very name of the place is a grossly greater insult to the memory of Ayn Rand than any Valliant imaginings about the Brandens. They've turned the public face of Ayn Rand into their personal zombie and PARC seems to be some sort of Peikoff revenge against the real person. Those private notes she wrote to herself during a time of great distress should have been handled with discretion, available to real scholars but not dumped on the public. By their very nature they would be embarrassing to their author as almost any such notes by anyone else would be similarly embarrassing. You have to write that way to focus down on the issues you are trying to deal with, but the result is you seem terribly conceited. It doesn't help that she was conceited. After all, she had a lot to be conceited about just for starters. If I wrote a novel as great and as powerful and as influential as Atlas Shrugged, I cannot begin to imagine what that would do to my sense of self. (I would not be happy; it would take over my life.)

--Brant

edited for one typo and one vary embarassing spelling mistake.

Edited by Brant Gaede
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Follow-up on post 6. Mike11, please tell us why this ARI op-ed is crap.

I haven't seen SiCKO but the op-ed is still crap. You know how I know this? Because its written the same way ARI people think.

1) When opposing a position either do not define it for maximum straw man or define it badly. This article does not contain a single argument made in Moore's film. Not one. While I'm not a MM fan I heard he made arguments about health insurance etc...

When countering a position at least have the decency to say how you're countering it and what the position is, k?

2) Use arguments from fear a lot, "wait for months before she receives the surgery and chemotherapy she needs, with the cancer cells multiplying rapidly as each week goes by.", "Canadian patients routinely suffer and die while waiting for their 'free' health care." ...

3) Typical ARI inability to see counter arguments to their points or rhetorical excesses (See Point 1).

4) An inspiring degree of logical structure, though granted Hsieh is far better than the higher level members, especially Peikoff, its still bad, let's look -

A) The system is not free

B) The system is exclusive, making it "difficult" or "impossible" to find other sources of treatment

C) The system costs people time But not in America, I guess, Though no proof was offered

D) The used time makes people die (But not in America, I guess)

D2) "This tax on time is especially cruel because the burden falls hardest on the sickest patients, i.e., those with the least time to spare." Now THAT is an interesting definition, those who are sickest are just the ones most in a hurry. Nice sloppy writing as always, I get the point but only by ignoring that sentence.

E)"With bureaucrats deciding who receives what, the individual is therefore forbidden from spending his money according to his own rational judgment (and the advice of his doctors) as to what's best for his health." Wait, forbidden, where did we get forbidden from, I thought it was "difficult"; makes a nice last line flourish though.

Now, in that whole op-ed can anyone find ONE SINGLE LINE that compares America's Health Care success with Canada's, with numbers? Lots of numbers about how we're taxed more and the number of casualties but if you're trying to prove America is better such a comparison would be pretty important. Nor, as I mentioned, outside of it being funded by tax is there mention of Canada's system being morally inferior to America's, maybe because they had no stats, maybe because when preaching to your own little choir everything is self evident, I don't know.

5) A personal issue, quoting P.J. O'Rourke at the end (A former COMMIE! and Republican!!!) versus the ARI common attack on EVERYONE outside their little cult.

6) Look at what this is in response to. Michael Moore went to Cuba to prove how their system is better. Environmental issues are treated as counters to Earth First, a 2 State Solution in Israel is treated like endorsing Hamas rule in both States....

Their material is consistently aimed at the radical, idiotic, opposite pole. They Never engage the rational center. Know why? Its because idiotic ideologically insular morons only recognize their opposite number.

I'm against Canada's Health Care system and want it Americanized but saying "The dog outside can fly so must be made of moon rock proves white is white " is still garbage.

Edited by Michael Stuart Kelly
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Whatever the scholarly shortcomings over at the Leonard Peikoff Institute, its acolytes seem finally to have cottoned that Jim Valliant is no scholar at all.

The recent acknowledgment by the Ayn Rand Archives of Barbara Branden's 1981 meeting with Ayn Rand has done major damage to the tattered remnants of Mr. Valliant's credibility.

And in his panic, Mr. Valliant seems to have forgotten something that he said in the pages of PARC:

Again and again, the Brandens produce suspicious evidence from “private conversations” that contradicts the entire body of verifiable information, but which conveniently helps them grind their particular axes.

We have seen that the rest of their evidence against Rand consists of purely emotional assertion devoid of fact-—precisely what Rand’s philosophy terms an “arbitrary” assertion. According to Objectivism, arbitrary claims are neither true nor false. They are, in this sense, “worse” than false, bearing no relation to reality whatever—even a negative one. It is error even to attempt to refute them.

On the surface, the Brandens’ biographical efforts consist of factual claims made by people who knew their subject well. Therefore, the identification of their works as being arbitrary can only be made after (at least some) careful analysis. As we have seen, such analysis readily demonstrates that a sweeping dismissal is, indeed, warranted.

Even if one day some of the Brandens’ assertions are verified by more credible sources and evidence, the Brandens will not have helped to establish their truth. Considerable independent research will be necessary to accomplish this. And it does not matter whether these discoveries cast Rand in a positive or negative light.

If one day, for example, it is somehow established, to the surprise of the author, that Rand’s callous indifference drove her husband to excessive drinking, the current analysis will still stand, and the Brandens’ credibility will not have been enhanced in any way. The basis of their inferences will be no less credible and no less arbitrary. (pp. 173-174, my bolding)

According to Mr. Valliant, then, any assertion by "the Brandens" not already criticized in his his first 173 pages can be dismissed as arbitrary. Laid on in its full Peikovian splendor, the doctrine of the arbitrary assertion declares that such statements are neither true nor false, indeed that they are as meaningless as the shapes of sand dunes blown by the wind; that such assertions are worse than false; and that putting one forward is wronger than wrong.

It further follows that no effort should be made to gather or assess evidence pertaining to such assertions, because if they are arbitrary, there is absolutely no reason to suppose that any relevant evidence exists.

Indeed, the mere thought that an arbitrary assertion might, under some circumstances, turn out to be true is a temptation that Dr. Peikoff exhorts the faithful to get behind them (note, in particular, his 1997 lecture on the subject).

Finally, the same assertion can be arbitrary when made by me, but true or false when made by you. So assertions made by "the Brandens," even should evidence turn up later that rationally convinces the rest of the world of their truth, remain arbitrary when enunciated by them.

So... you see... the assertion that Barbara Branden met with Ayn Rand in 1981 is true when asserted by James Valliant, not when asserted by Barbara Branden.

And Mr. Valliant never needed to examine any evidence pertaining to the assertion, because before the Ayn Rand Archives hit him with that bolt out of the blue, there was no reason for him to look around for any evidence. Indeed, there was good reason to resist that temptation to look around, which would have been a gross concession to irrationality, etc. yadda etc.

Mr. Valliant hasn't thought to invoke the doctrine of the arbitrary assertion in order to excuse himself.

Could that be because he doesn't really believe in it?

It's hard to see how anyone could subscribe to the entire mishmosh...

Robert Campbell

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Oh wow. Oh wow. Oh wow.

This will be interesting to watch. This would be the first time an ARI affiliate has crashed and burned on this scale wouldn't it?

I honestly don't know, being new to the LULZ and all.

Or maybe that college was bigger.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Reply to post 9:

The mention of Michael Moore is merely to introduce the main topic -- the Canadian health care system.

The main topic is not to compare Canadian health care and American health care. Moreover, it's an op-ed, not a lengthy magazine, newspaper, or journal article.

What is "the rational center"?

In my view the op-ed makes good points, so it's not "crap" or "garbage".

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Reply to post 9:

The mention of Michael Moore is merely to introduce the main topic -- the Canadian health care system.

The main topic is not to compare Canadian health care and American health care. Moreover, it's an op-ed, not a lengthy magazine, newspaper, or journal article.

What is "the rational center"?

In my view the op-ed makes good points, so it's not "crap" or "garbage".

You're partially right, the entire Op-Ed said nothing of its point but the last section reads, "America must not repeat Canada's mistakes. As P. J. O'Rourke said, 'If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it's free.' "

Sounds like a comparison. Its saying"Don't go down Canada's road, things will get worse." Again, 0 proof of how America is better.

I mean seriously, you think the author just decided to write about Canada for no reason? All the ARI material is about what ought to be done, though they bury this as far as possible to make it look like the display of fact. If the last sentence is a moral conclusion than the article was a moral argument, not a pointless text book look at Canada.

The rational center is the rest of humanity that looks at the ARI and says, "Wow,that's psychotic" in the same way they look at others like Moonies and Stalinists.

Edited by Mike11
Link to comment
Share on other sites

In regard to the Penthouse Legend changes, I want to compress into one succinct post the details of the discrepancy between Valliant's version and the descriptions from Reisman and Phil Smith.

The only named source Valliant gives is Jeff Walker's book The Ayn Rand Cult. However, as Neil writes in the current article:

[...] Walker quotes Kay Smith as saying that she made "unauthorized changes to a few lines of dialogue for a public performance." (TARC, p. 35.) This obvious discrepancy was first brought to Valliant's attention by Dr. Chris Sciabarra in July 2005. Valliant responded on Sciabarra's blog:

[...] the reported account of the Smith break, involving changes to the dialogue of a play by Rand they were producing, has been in circulation for many years, indeed. I should have, perhaps, included the fact that the changes made to Rand's play were removed before its opening (although ~ how ~ Rand discovered these changes in the production remains the essence of the charge), but my own anonymous sources here are credible contemporaries to the event and their reports to me long pre-date Walker's book. (Emphasis added.)

As I pointed out, Philip Smith and Dr. George Reisman (an Orthodox Objectivist no longer affiliated with the ARI) confirmed post-PARC that the change was a minor change to one or two lines of the play's last (or one of its last) performances. According to Philip Smith, Kay Smith told Rand that she made the change. Yet Valliant tells us that the changes were made before the play's opening and implies that there was something underhanded about the way the Smiths (allegedly) made and concealed these changes. In spite of my repeated requests, Valliant refused to disclose what his sources told him. When pushed, Valliant responded that, "(i)t WAS a minor change as far as I am concerned . . . ." How this squares with what he said on Sciabarra's blog is anyone's guess. Even more strange, Valliant recently contended that the public sources (specifically George Reisman(4)) confirm that the changes were made prior to the play's opening.

Reisman's account appears on his blog in 2006, where he writes:

Toward the close of the play's run, an actor prevailed upon this young woman to allow him to alter one of Ayn Rand's lines in one of the play's last performances.

Phil Smith's description is quoted in a post by Barbara here:

All I remember is that a line of Regans that always got an inappropriate laugh was cut for one evening performance and when Kay told Ayn about it the next day you would have thought that the Enola Gay had dropped the bomb.

As of Fri, 2008-03-14 19:21, in a post on SOLO, Valliant still claims that the changes were made prior to the play's opening. (Also his wording "found out about" instead of "was told of" continues to lend to an impression of sneakiness on the Smiths' part.) :

[my emphasis]

The witnesses are unanimous, sir, changes were slipped in -- only to be reversed prior to the opening -- and only when Rand found out about them.

___

Edited by Ellen Stuttle
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Finally, the same assertion can be arbitrary when made by me, but true or false when made by you. So assertions made by "the Brandens," even should evidence turn up later that rationally convinces the rest of the world of their truth, remain arbitrary when enunciated by them.

So... you see... the assertion that Barbara Branden met with Ayn Rand in 1981 is true when asserted by James Valliant, not when asserted by Barbara Branden.

Even more convoluted, he considers true the claim that Ayn and Nathaniel acquired the permission of their respective spouses before embarking on the affair even though this claim is arbitrary when asserted by the only two possible living witnesses. ;-)

Ellen

___

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The entire concept of the arbitrary is, well, arbitrary in most contexts. For example, if I say "Rand had a copy of Josiah Royce's The World and the Individual in her study," that might be considered arbitrary since I never met her, never went to her apartment, have no idea of what books were in her library, etc. If I turn out to be correct, it's just a lucky guess.

But for Barbara Branden to say she met Rand in 1981 is of course quite different.

Apparently when "the Brandens" say Rand had a temper we should find that arbitrary. But when Peikoff says it, it's Gospel.

Edited by Neil Parille
Link to comment
Share on other sites

This is a bit off topic, but the idea of elevating a legitimate concept, arbitrary, to an illegitimate meaning is breathtaking to see in Objectivists, to say the least.

True and false are categories of how an epistemological concept corresponds to a metaphysical fact. Facts exist independently of human awareness, although the concept of fact is, by nature of being a concept itself, merely our way of identifying that state. There is no such thing as an arbitrary fact. A fact merely exists.

A concept corresponds to a fact or it doesn't. Since a concept is made up of lots of identifications, some of them can be false and some of them can be true, but that does not make the concept arbitrary. It makes the concept partially false, or partially true, however one wishes to express that.

Man has the faculty of volition. One of the choices open to him is to consciously engage his rational faculty before doing something. When he does not engage his rational faculty but acts anyway, the basis of his act is said to be arbitrary. A choice can be arbitrary, not a fact.

That is the legitimate meaning of the word. Arbitrary describes a manner of choosing—human action with reason turned off. It does not describe a metaphysical state.

The waters get muddied by some people because a concept can be formed by making arbitrary choices of what to include in it instead of reason-based choices. But the judgment of the concept itself will be whether it is true or false, in other words, whether it corresponds to reality or not. There is no such thing as an arbitrary concept—by definition.

Those who propose such a category are not proposing the same thing as given in ITOE.

Michael

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Michael,

We should probably pick up the matter of the arbitrary in a little while. I submitted an article on the subject to the Journal of Ayn Rand Studies. In it I attempt to track all the strange twists and byways that the doctrine of the arbitrary assertion has gone through.

Still, as you know from checking Ayn Rand's own uses of the word in print, "arbitrary" for her just meant "nonobjective" or "subjective." She approved an article by Nathaniel Branden in 1963 that put forward a much milder treatment of arbitrary assertions than Leonard Peikoff would elaborate later on.

Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology never mentions arbitrary assertions. It condemns arbitrariness in the formation and use of concepts or definitions, but never elaborates a theory of arbitrary concepts. The closest that Rand gets in this book is her treatment of "invalid" concepts, which transmit their invalidity to any assertion in which their validity is presupposed. Even here, she doesn't develop her notion of invalidity.

Leonard Peikoff gets around the difficulty that you mentioned (how could "arbitrary" pertain to a "metaphysical state"?) by claiming that arbitrary assertions refer directly to: Nonexistence, The Zero, Nothing with a capital N, The Void, what's outside the universe when the universe can't have an outside.

This is consistent with his love of Parmenides (far more fervent than Rand's...). It is also consistent with some of Rand's rhetoric, in Galt's speech and elsewhere. But it causes no end of epistemological problems for Dr. Peikoff, none of which he ever seems to recognize.

Robert Campbell

PS. Ayn Rand endorsed Leonard Peikoff's 1976 lectures, which means she signed off on a pretty extreme formulation of the doctrine of the arbitrary assertion. But the version presented in those lectures has Dr. Peikoff's fingerprints all over it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...

Here is something I just posted on my weblog:

________

James Valliant says in The Passion of Ayn Rand's Critics that the Brandens' books are "useless" to historians. Here is a partial list of claims/accounts that were first made in The Passion of Ayn Rand that have since been confirmed. Of course, not all are earth-shattering and Peikoff and the Sures have disputed Branden's description of Rand's anger, but I think all this is worth pondering.

1. Nathaniel Branden had an affair with Ayn Rand. Although Leonard Peikoff at first questioned this, even he now admits it.

2. Nathaniel Branden and Rand obtained the consent of their spouses before starting the affair. Confirmed by ARI Archivist Jeff Britting in Ayn Rand.

3. Nathaniel Branden and Rand first became lovey-dovey during a ride to Toronto. Rand mentions this ride in her diaries as excerpted in PARC.

4. Barbara Branden met Rand in 1981. Confirmed by the Archives, although Valliant initially implied this was a lie.

5. The Collective threw the surprise party for Rand to celebrate Atlas Shrugged. Confirmed by the Sures in Facets of Ayn Rand.

6. Rand used diet pills. Confirmed by a letter sent by Isabel Paterson to Rand quoted in Cox, The Woman and the Dynamo.

7. Rand had anger management issues. Confirmed by Leonard Peikoff in "My Thirty Years with Ayn Rand."

8. Rand occasionally became angry in response to questions. Confirmed by the Sures.

9. Rand's habit of expressing public disapproval for things she didn't like. Confirmed by the Sures.

10. Rand's typing kept her Chicago relatives up at night.* Confirmed by Britting.

11. Rand didn't like surprise parties. Confirmed by the Sures.

12. Detailed recollections of Dr. and Mrs. Blumenthal concerning Rand as quoted in PAR. Not disputed by Valliant.

13. Rand's disappointment with her sister Nora during visit to US in 70s. Confirmed by Britting.

14. Cult-like nature of the Objectivist movement in the 60s. Confirmed by Valliant (although places the blame on Nathaniel Branden).

____

*I don't have a copy of Who is Ayn Rand? handy, so maybe this was mentioned there.

Edited by Neil Parille
Link to comment
Share on other sites

10. Rand's typing kept her Chicago relatives up at night.* Confirmed by Britten.

. . .

____

*I don't have a copy of Who is Ayn Rand? handy, so maybe this was mentioned there.

Neil,

The correspoinding passage in Who is Ayn Rand? insinuates it, but does not mention it. There are only two paragraphs that discuss the issue and Rand's mentality at that time (pp. 137-138 of the Paperback Library edition):

When she reached Chicago where her relatives lived, she began writing movie scenarios. She was determined to make a name for herself as a writer, and to earn her living. She had studied English briefly in Russia; she knew that she was not yet ready to write a novel in English, but she could write stories for the silent screen. She worked with a feeling of a race against time, of having no right to relax because the future was so uncertain.

There was one absolute in her mind: she would never return to Russia. She would find a way to remain in America, even if it meant spending years in Canada or Mexico, waiting to be readmitted under the permanent quota.

Michael

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Neil,

I see you are at it again with Valliant on SOLOP (see here and abouts for the actual posts).

I get totally amused by Valliant sidestepping the issue when you ask him about who he interviewed and so forth. His scholarship was crud and this is killing his credibility. I really get a hoot when he says he was not writing a biography so he did not need to check facts by interviewing people.

Following that line of thinking, you only need to check facts against independent sources to write a biography, but you don't need to check facts against independent sources to question a biography that is already written.

Heh.

What a double standard!

The sad part is that I think his thinking is so corrupted (from seeing him reason in such a boneheaded manner time and time again) that he might even believe something like that in all sincerity.

But let us look at actual scholarship. I am sick and tired of him claiming Barbara had no sources, or her sources were unnamed, yada yada yada. If you repeat a lie often enough, some people are going to believe you. So let us look at the facts.

Can the following be called proper scholarship for a person who has undertaken a project to discredit two different accounts of Rand's life, and one of those in two versions? Here are the acknowledgments in PARC:

Acknowledgments-PARC-1.jpg

Is that what he calls "Acknowledgements"?

"Scholarship?"

"Sources?"

Heh.

How many of those people even knew Rand?

Here is what I call "Acknowledgements" (from The Passion of Ayn Rand):

Acknowledgments-PASSION1.jpg

Acknowledgments-PASSION2.jpg

To my knowledge, the publication of The Passion of Ayn Rand was not hidden from any of those people Barbara mentioned. And to my knowledge, not one of them publicly complained that the information they provided Barbara was misrepresented in her book. They have had plenty of time, too (the ones who are still living).

Michael

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Michael,

I've asked Valliant before on his sources and whether he consulted the interviews that the Archives took. This is the first time that I can recall that he actually told me that he didn't ask to read the interviews, although even now he is a bit nebulous -- "I did not request to listen to all of that material."

His claim that this wasn't necessary because he wasn't "writing a biography" is lame. He is accusing people of making up events or exaggerating them, accounts that could be refuted or confirmed based on material that he had access to.

To take one example, consider Fern Brown's account of having seen Rand take the name "Rand" in 1926. He accused her of lying. Why not listen to her interview before concluding it was a lie instead of an erroneous memory?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Michael,

Far as I can tell, only one of the people that Jim Valliant thanks by name actually knew Ayn Rand: Allan Gotthelf.

There is also one source not mentioned in the acknowledgments who knew Rand: Leonard Peikoff.

Robert Campbell

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

FWIW, Liberty magazine (a libertarian magazine I've subscribed to for some time) has been selling at a discount their back issues (which I didn't even know they had available...). Because I'm one of those strange people who like to have a complete run of magazines I like, I took advantage of this to get the earlier issues I missed and fill in some holes. I don't think I discovered Liberty until some time in the mid 90s, so there are several years I needed.

In getting these back issues, I've been reading thru them. In the earlier years, there were several articles about Rand. Interviews with people who knew her, articles by people who knew her, etc. Overall I enjoyed them. They didn't really change my overall view of Rand. Nor my view of Barbara Branden. My view of Nathaniel has changed, in that my opinion of him is less then it was.

Now, one thing I did notice was a ad for a self-published booklet called "In Defense of Ayn Rand" by a Virginia L.L. Hamel which came out in 1990. There was also a review of this work. The work was mainly 3 essays in 'answer' to PAR, Rothbard's "Socialogy of the AR Cult", and Judgement Day (as well as something called "Passages Cut from Judgement Day").

Now, I'd never heard of this work (not surprising, as at the time I was busy in college and not really involved with the libertarian/objectivist world(s) at the time), and it doesn't appear to have been around long. The author apparently knew Rand, but the review seems to reveal she didn't care for the Peikoff crowd.

Since this work seems a forerunner to the PARC, I have to wonder if it had any bearing. (one thing was it had the coriners report on Patrecia's death, I guess to bring up issues with Branden's account).

So, was kind of curious about the impact, if any, of this work.

Edited by Michael Brown
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

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

Create an account

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

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now