Seeking The Original NBI Basic Principles of Objectivism Lectures

[Ellen Stuttle]

[....] The U. of Denver was simply a philosophical backwater, not one so much for for anthropology. Peikoff had no other place to go since Sidney Hook refused to sanction his teaching aspirations which Robert Campbell has described as academic death. I no longer think Peikoff was "banished" by Ayn Rand. I think he went where he could go.

That's the conclusion I've come to also -- i.e., that the "banishment" idea isn't accurate, though it is what I heard tell from people in Rand's circles, and it's the way NB described it. See the second post copied below.

Subsequently he taught in the English dept. at Brooklyn Poly just across the famous bridge and it seems he was there pre and post break 1968. I know this for a fact and actually went to that school one day and found his office, probably in 1969 or 70.

The "seems" and the knowing it "for a fact" don't jibe.

According to an announcement in The Objectivist (which announcement was included in the long post you copied in full), yes, Peikoff was at Brooklyn Poly pre-break. He started at Brooklyn Poly in September 1966:

The Objectivist

Volume 5, Number 5, May 1966

Objectivist Calendar

pg. 16

Dr. Leonard Peikoff will leave the University of Denver in June; in September, he will assume the position of Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn, in Brooklyn, New York.

That Peikoff was at Brooklyn Poly post-break I can definitely attest. I, too, think that he was hired in the English department.

Below is a relevant post from June 2008. My calling the school "Brooklyn College" was a mistake. Someone else's post had given me the idea that Brooklyn Poly was for a time called "Brooklyn College," but "Brooklyn College" is and always has been a whole different school from Brooklyn Poly and is geared to a different clientele. Brooklyn College is where Hospers was teaching when he met Rand.

He taught at the University of Denver for a year or two. While he may have been on Rand's bad side for a while, I doubt he was sent to Denver. You go where the jobs are. He had just gotten his doctorate but no teaching rec. from Sidney Hook.

--Brant

His sojourn in Denver was referred to as his "exile" by people in Rand's circles, and that's the way NB talks about it in Judgment Day. (I don't recall if he used the exact word "exile," but he talks of Rand's being fed up and sending Leonard off to Denver.) Obviously, LP had to have gotten a job offer, and those don't just show up by snaping fingers. The impression I get is that there were some other places where he might have gotten an assignment in the New York vicinity, but she told him to take the Denver slot. This is an impression only; I've never heard the details.

[ADD, 7/12/12: See the opening remarks. Like Brant, I no longer think that Peikoff was "banished." My current view is that the idea that he was "banished" is a Rand-circles myth.]

Ellen

PS: Robert, re his job at Brooklyn College [brooklyn Poly; see Phil's post below]. IIRC, he was hired by the English department. He did teach a seminar on the philosophy of science. I sat in on that. I recall that during "the Putsch at Poly," as it became known -- one of those student attempted take-over things of a kind going on a lot then -- he did a lot of talking in the faculty meetings, and faculty members were heard to ask who he was, if he was on faculty. (I heard this question being asked; I was there because I was doing volunteer typing for them, at Larry's request -- Larry was running the computer work for the registrar while taking some courses he needed to make up before going to grad school. It was a "wild" few weeks. ;-))

[Ellen Stuttle]

Thanks for the links, Ellen, concerning Larry’s encounters.

Would you believe...? At first I was going to include the parts about Larry's encounters, but then I thought that you might consider those parts "gossip" and be irritated. On the other hand, I wanted people to be able to find that material, so I settled for indicating that if the link were followed, they could find it. Lo and behold, you were interested by it.

Thanks in turn for your long and informative discussion on Rand and Peikoff re the correspondence theory of truth. I've very glad to have all that material together in one place.

I don't have time now for detailed response. Along with still being enmeshed in efforts to gain control of books, papers, etc., threatening to take over this house if they aren't tamed -- efforts which are keeping me primarily elsewhere than in front of the computer screen -- I'm currently trying to write part of the story of my life on the thread called "A Jung Tale." So I can't right now dig into the references and details, but I do want to reply to your post step-by-step when I can.

Just a few comments now:

[Merlin Jetton] argues that Rand’s epistemological views and her metaphysical views “purport some version of the correspondence theory of truth.” He notes that both Kelley (1986, 28) and Peikoff (1991, 165) classified Rand’s conception of truth as “in essence” the traditional correspondence conception. Merlin goes on to argue, however, that Rand’s emphasis on non-contradictory integration, as well as her metaphysics, gives her conception some of the character of the coherence theory of truth.

I've previously read Merlin's essay. I agree that Rand's notion of the "correspondence conception" always did depart from the "traditional" view in having "some of the character of the coherence theory."

I was glad, upon getting to the last paragraph of the current material, to find this statement starting it:

Her picture is significantly incorrect in my view because [...].

I'm thinking that what you say there -- combined with what you said in the two earlier posts you appended -- addresses my previous reservations over your comment (in the first of the appended posts) "With that I can agree, Ellen." I wanted to ask you further about that earlier, but the post appeared in Robert Campbell's "Corner" and in circumstances which became inflamed between you and Robert, so I thought best to let it go in that context. Of course, here we're straying afield from Randall's initial question, but the material does seem releant in this context, since it pertains to the history of Rand's thinking.

I'm also thinking that I agree with you that "Peikoff's establish [in OPAR] [...] was not saying something beyond Rand’s picture of ’57 and ’66–’67."

However, I contend that what Peikoff does with the issue of "contextually absolute" "truth" in the material from him in The Logical Leap is saying something beyond Rand's peculiar version of "the correspondence theory" and even directly flies in the face of some comments she made in the Expanded Version of ITOE -- on page 302, and in an earlier passage in that section. Sorry, I don't have time to dig up the quotes right now, though I have them already typed somewhere as contrast to quotes from TLL.

You say you've only read "the first thirty or so pages of Logical Leap." If I recall page numbers right, Peikoff has already started by that point (on page 26 IIRC) to do what I object to (the material in that section of the book is almost verbatim from Peikoff's course). Coincidentally, just this afternoon, in sorting some of the stuff around here, I came upon this little note to myself, dated 1/3/12, which briefly states my objection:

"Peikoff displays the art of turning false universals into the 'contextually absolute' foundation of supposedly guaranteed inductive inference."

The desciption might give a clue as to why I think he's gone far beyond the previous correspondence/coherence blend of Rand's views. He's made "truth" an issue of how an idea is arrived at, never mind its incorrectness to fact.

Again, thanks for the post.

Ellen

[Robert Campbell]

I do not find Peikoff’s statement “Logical processing of an idea within a specific context of knowledge is necessary and sufficient to establish the idea’s truth” in my notes on the ’76 lecture series.

Well, let's hope this passage from OPAR isn't in anyone's notes taken at or from Leonard Peikoff's 1976 lectures.

Because Leonard Peikoff didn't say it during those lectures.

It's nowhere to be found in Roger Bissell's transcription of Lecture 6, What Is Rationality? In fact, the word "sufficient" appears just once in that lecture.

Nor was it the among slightly polished excerpts from the lectures that Harry Binswanger used in his Ayn Rand Lexicon.

Here, so far as I can see, is the closest that Peikoff got in Lecture 6:

An absolute, in the sense of the term that’s relevant here, means: an idea or principle that is unchangingly valid, an idea or truth that holds unvaryingly.

Now, for the same reason that all knowledge, properly so called, is contextually certain, all knowledge is contextually absolute, immutable, unvarying. Contextualism does not mean relativism. It does not mean that every conclusion is subject to change by future discoveries. On the contrary, as we’ve seen, if your conclusion is specified contextually and validated properly, it will be an absolute, a contextual absolute.

Robert Campbell

PS. Every time I've read Chapter 5 in OPAR, that phrase "logical processing" has jumped out at me. Not only because it's cryptic, but because I know of no other occasion that Peikoff said it or wrote it.

[Robert Campbell]

Her picture is significantly incorrect in my view because as one’s (scientific) knowledge grows one’s knowledge of what was one’s previous context of knowledge also grows. One continues to learn what were the ways in which one's previous generalizations were over-generalizations (and in what ways they were inexplicit, indefinite, or vague). There was no reason to suppose that the Galilean rule for addition of velocities was only a close approximation to the low-velocity portion of a different rule for addition of velocities more generally, no reason until the electrodynamic results in the nineteenth century. There was no reason to post a specific caveat before then, along the lines of "for all velocities we've experienced so far." It remains that in present truth there is past truth and so forth to the future. We cannot know entirely which elements of scientific truth today will stand in a hundred more years of advance nor how those elements will have been transformed and connected with new concepts. Our repeatable experiments will still be repeatable (notwithstanding the unfounded imaginings of the Hume set), whatever new understanding we bring to them.*

[*Added later, notice of this related idea: “No matter what the study of optics discovers, it will never affect the distinction between red and green. The same applies to all observed facts, including the fact of life” (Peikoff 1991, 192).]

Stephen Boydstun will no doubt fall off his chair, but I agree 100% with his comments about contextual certainty here.

Whatever in this doctrine is originally Rand's versus originally Peikoff's, Boydstun's critique applies with as much force to Rand's claims in ITOE as to Peikoff's contemporary and subsequent formulations.

Robert Campbell

[Robert Campbell]

Here's a thought: the NBI originals were taped in front of a live audience; any that Branden may have redone for AA presumably were not. This could be an indicator as to what's from which version.

Bingo!

A few of the Basic Principles lectures as released by AA were recorded in front of a live audience (and show other signs of their greater age, such as tape-speed changes and analog generation loss).

The rest were recorded in an empty studio.

For reasons best explained by ND, there is no reason to infer that the lectures recorded in the empty studio depart in any interesting way from either the content or the wording of their predecessors.

Robert Campbell

[Robert Campbell]

Here's a full paragraph from Diana Hsieh's aforementioned post (bolding added by me):

For many years, I knew that Nathaniel Branden condemned such lies in very clear terms in his “Basic Principles of Objectivism” course. (That course was originally given at NBI, and it was approved by Ayn Rand.) However, the version of that course available to the public (which I own) was actually re-recorded after his break with Ayn Rand. I worried that, particularly on this issue, Branden might have changed the content. Recently, I was able to get my hands on a rarity: the original lectures recorded at NBI. To my surprise, the discussion of privacy lies was exactly the same as in the publicly available versions. Moreover, Ayn Rand didn’t seem to change her view later in life: her remarks in the Q&A of Dr. Peikoff’s “Philosophy of Objectivism” course indicate that she still regarded lies for the sake of privacy as wrong in 1976.

If Dr. Hsieh actually got her mitts on any complete set of recorded Basic Principles lectures from the NBI period, many of the recordings included must have come from former NBI representatives who refused to return them to Nathaniel Branden.

That's what the legal action would end up being about.

Her surprise, is, of course, feigned.

Back in 2003-2004, when she was preparing her, umm, transition to ARI, she fully acknowledged the position that Nathaniel Branden took about "privacy lies" in the AA-issued lectures, and made no insinuations that he had altered the content of his lectures in any way, shape, or form since August 1968.

Meanwhile, she's right about Rand's Q&A contribution in 1976. See, for instance, Rand's answer after Peikoff's Lecture 8.

AYN RAND: [CD 2, track 5, 9:19] Sorry that I spoke out of turn, but I understood the question somewhat differently. Uh, it could very well have been taken as Dr. Peikoff took it, and in which case his answer is correct. But what I heard in it, as I heard the question, was: if you are discussing an issue with somebody, you’ve undertaken to answer but you don’t volunteer the whole truth. Now, that is very vicious, vicious form of lying. It, there are many situations in which you don’t have to answer, particularly family situations. If you disagree with your parents—and you should never attempt to convert your parents—and you don’t want them to be unhappy, uh, on certain issues, you just don’t answer. Or, if they force the issue, you answer the minimum; that is all right. But the kind of iss, euh, situation which I would regard as extremely vicious is the following: you discuss some issue with a friend, or even a stranger, but you agree to discuss it, yet you do not tell the full truth. That is more misleading than if you were lying. Generally speaking, it is very evil to claim honesty, uh, when, euh, you are deceiving somebody. If you haven’t made any such claim, it’s bad enough to lie. But to say, “Remember, I’m telling you the truth, and I’m honest,” and then lie, is monstrous. And it’s incidentally, in this respect that I’m very curious to see what Mr. Carter is going to do. All candidates deceive their audience to a greater or lesser extent, but he made a big issue of trust and honesty and openness in everything. All right, let’s see. Mayb, maybe he’ll live up to it, in which case, I’ll be delighted to be wrong; but I doubt it very much, because what he was promising cannot be done in politics; and, therefore, what he was doing was telling you the truth up to a point, but not the full truth. Which, euh, is the reason why the usual oath that you are supposed to take in court, euhh, is very wise, when you’re supposed to swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. And it’s the second, “the whole truth,” that is very important, if you are giving the impression or have undertaken to discuss something with someone honestly. Euhh, you don’t have to discuss, but to discuss partially and pretend that, it’s, well, you’re honest, yet you are not volunteering the whole truth that’s relevant, is very vicious.[CD 2, track, 12:20]

Not to mention Rand's follow-up, after Lecture 9, on lying to one's parents.

Robert Campbell

[Brant Gaede]

Here's a thought: the NBI originals were taped in front of a live audience; any that Branden may have redone for AA presumably were not. This could be an indicator as to what's from which version.

Bingo!

A few of the Basic Principles lectures as released by AA were recorded in front of a live audience (and show other signs of their greater age, such as tape-speed changes and analog generation loss).

The rest were recorded in an empty studio.

For reasons best explained by ND, there is no reason to infer that the lectures recorded in the empty studio depart in any interesting way from either the content or the wording of their predecessors.

Robert Campbell

I wonder how old the live audience material was in the sense when was it last previously used? It was accepted and known and not contradicted after the break in 1968 that the lectures needed to be extensively revised or rewritten as in a refreshment. But, in front of a live audience in--1963?

--Brant

[Robert Campbell]

But, in front of a live audience in--1963?

Brant,

Who knows?

A former NBI representative might be able to put a date on such recordings.

No one else would.

Robert Campbell

[Ellen Stuttle]

If Dr. Hsieh actually got her mitts on any complete set of recorded Basic Principles lectures from the NBI period, many of the recordings included must have come from former NBI representatives who refused to return them to Nathaniel Branden.

Or possibly from the ARI archives?

Reposting a couple old posts by Barbara about the post-break theft of NBI material.

[underscore is added.]

Donovan: "I am looking for as many original audio-lectures that were given at NBI as possible!"

So am I. This is what happened. NBI had complete sets of all lectures given by NB, Rand, our associate lecturers, guest lecturers, and me. And the man in charge of making copies of the lectures and sending them out to our representatives in various cities had many copies of each. However, some months after NBI closed, our copies of the lectures, as well as many NBI files and records, were stolen from the personal friend to whom I had given them for safekeeping; to this day I have no idea who stole them. Further, the man who made copies took Rand's side after the break between Rand and NB, he did not return his copies to us, and when The Ayn Rand Institute was formed he - quite illegally -- gave his copies to that institute. Such is the ethics of ARI that we were never told that the lectures came into its possession; I discovered it years later quite by chance.

The result is that neither NB or I have copies of the single lectures and lecture courses given and copyrighted by our Institute, except for our own. (And I'm not certain that Nathaniel has all of the lecture courses he wrote and gave.)

If anyone reading this has any copies, or knows of anyone who might have them, I would be very grateful to hear from you.

Barbara

A postscript to my last post. I am most definitely not assuming that people who have copies of any NBI lectures came to possess them illegally. They might quite innocently have purchased them, or been given them. Nor do I wish these lectures to be turned over to Nathaniel or me, although of course no one else may publish them or rent then out; I simply want to have copies sent to me..

Barbara

[Robert Campbell]

Or possibly from the ARI archives?

Which, in turn, would have gotten them from a former NBI representative who purposely withheld them from Nathaniel and Barbara Branden.

Does Diana Hsieh still have access to the Ayn Rand Archives?

I of course don't know, but she is in bad enough odor with Leonard Peikoff that she may no longer be allowed in.

Robert Campbell

[Ellen Stuttle]

Or possibly from the ARI archives?

Which, in turn, would have gotten them from a former NBI representative who purposely withheld them from Nathaniel and Barbara Branden.

According to Barbara Branden's report, reposted in post #34, ARI got them from the man who was "in charge of making copies of the lectures and sending them out to our representatives in various cities [and] had many copies of each," thus presumably had a complete set in good condition of all the taped lectures.

Donovan wondered in reply to Barbara if maybe ARI had destroyed the material it received. Barbara thought not. I hope not. What I'd particularly like to know is if ARI has copies of the "Critical Review of Psychological Theories" course, or whatever it was called, which Nathaniel gave. This isn't because I liked the course but because I didn't and hope there's a record of what NBI students -- and Rand -- were being taught about then-contemporary schools of psychology.

Does Diana Hsieh still have access to the Ayn Rand Archives?

I of course don't know, but she is in bad enough odor with Leonard Peikoff that she may no longer be allowed in.

I don't know where "Diana Hsieh's aforementioned post" which you quote from in post #31 was aforementioned. What was the date of that post by Diana? Was it recent?

Ellen

[Robert Campbell]

According to Barbara Branden's report, reposted in post #34, ARI got them from the man who was "in charge of making copies of the lectures and sending them out to our representatives in various cities [and] had many copies of each," thus presumably had a complete set in good condition of all the taped lectures.

In other words, the lecture tapes were withheld by a former NBI representative.

Diana Hsieh's statement (already linked from the post that starts this topic) is from January 25 of this year:

http://www.philosoph...om/blog/?p=5410

She refers to the Checking Premises site, on which junior ARIans were just then starting to designate her as the next scapegoat. She has been in bad odor with Leonard Peikoff at least since John McCaskey was made into the previous scapegoat. (And now that Jim Valliant has chimed in at Checking Premises, we may infer that she's in worse odor.)

Robert Campbell

PS. I would like to see all of the NBI lecture series made available to the public, as well as to scholars not connected with ARI.

[Ellen Stuttle]

According to Barbara Branden's report, reposted in post #34, ARI got them from the man who was "in charge of making copies of the lectures and sending them out to our representatives in various cities [and] had many copies of each," thus presumably had a complete set in good condition of all the taped lectures.

In other words, the lecture tapes were withheld by a former NBI representative.

Robert,

I was taking you to mean by "representative" what the term meant in NBI days, but maybe you were using it more generally. The people who were called "representatives" were those who organized and hosted the playing of NBI tapes in non-NYC locales. At any given time, a representative would only have tapes of a currently active course. Some of the representatives, who had sizable frequent audiences, acquired local power, such as the Cosbys in the Los Angeles area and Ed Nash and his then-wife Iris Bell in Chicago, but I think the representatives weren't paid, except maybe by getting to hear the material free themselves.

The guy Barbara was talking about, however -- I once knew his name but I've forgotten -- was a sound engineer who had the master set of tapes and made the copies which were mailed out. He was either on salary or contract. His keeping all that stuff was a major infringement.

If Barbara's right that he gave all of it to ARI, and if none of it has been destroyed, damaged, or lost, this means that ARI has a full set of NBI taped material in whatever state of revision it was in at the time of the break.

--

Since Diana's post was from after the start of her fall from grace, as it were, my guess, too, is that she didn't hear tapes at the archives but got them somewhere else. I was hoping that she might have heard them at the archives, since if she had, this would be clear evidence that copies are reposing there.

Ellen

[Reidy]

The story I heard was that NBI business reps got 10% of the gross.

[Brant Gaede]

The story I heard was that NBI business reps got 10% of the gross.

If true they weren't adequately compensated except for listening to the tapes themselves for free and interacting with the people who came to listen to them and for contact with the people in NYC. There was the psychic reward for being in what they felt was an extremely important intellectual movement headed by people seemingly at the pinnacle of deserved admiration.

--Brant

[Ellen Stuttle]

The story I heard was that NBI business reps got 10% of the gross.

Where did you hear that?

There are two advertisements in The Objectivist seeking Business Representatives (written capitalized in the advertisements), one in April 1967 and one in November 1967.

Just as with the paid-subscription number -- see -- the number of cities where courses were being offered had shrunk between a listing of locations in April 1966 and the one in April 1967. The number was 82 in April 1966, down to 64 in April 1967 (31 locations dropped, 13 added, for a net loss of 18). Possibly the number had dropped farther by November 1967, which is why what's listed then is cities where Representatives are sought, not cities where courses were playing.

Here's the wording in April 1967:

DO YOU WISH TO BE AN

NBI BUSINESS REPRESENTATIVE?

NBI's Tape Transcription Division is now planning its Fall 1967 and Spring 1968 schedule. We are interested in making "Basic Principles of Objectivism" and other lecture courses available in cities where they currently are not being offered, and we are seeking suitable Business Representatives.

If you wish to act as NBI's Representative in a city not listed below, please write our office for information concerning the functions of a Business Representative and the qualifications required by NBI.

Here's the wording in November 1967:

DO YOU WISH TO BE AN

NBI BUSINESS REPRESENTATIVE?

NBI's Tape Transcription Division is now planning its Spring and Fall 1968 schedule. We are interested in making "Basic Principles of Objectivism" and other lecture courses available in cities where they are not being offered at present, and we are seeking suitable Business Representatives to work part-time in organizing lecture groups in these cities.

If you wish to act as NBI's Representative in a city listed below, please write our office for information concerning the functions of a Business Representative and the qualifications required by NBI.

The description "to work part-time" has the sound of pay being offered for "organizing lecture groups." But nothing more specific is said.

I wonder if NBI started offering some remuneration as an enticer as market began dwindling after its peak.

Ellen

[Reidy]

I heard this from a former business rep. NBI was a profit-seeking (and -finding) commercial enterprise; people wouldn't have worked for free.

[Brant Gaede]

The story I heard was that NBI business reps got 10% of the gross.

Where did you hear that?

There are two advertisements in The Objectivist seeking Business Representatives (written capitalized in the advertisements), one in April 1967 and one in November 1967.

Just as with the paid-subscription number -- see -- the number of cities where courses were being offered had shrunk between a listing of locations in April 1966 and the one in April 1967. The number was 82 in April 1966, down to 64 in April 1967 (31 locations dropped, 13 added, for a net loss of 18). Possibly the number had dropped farther by November 1967, which is why what's listed then is cities where Representatives are sought, not cities where courses were playing.

Here's the wording in April 1967:

DO YOU WISH TO BE AN

NBI BUSINESS REPRESENTATIVE?

NBI's Tape Transcription Division is now planning its Fall 1967 and Spring 1968 schedule. We are interested in making "Basic Principles of Objectivism" and other lecture courses available in cities where they currently are not being offered, and we are seeking suitable Business Representatives.

If you wish to act as NBI's Representative in a city not listed below, please write our office for information concerning the functions of a Business Representative and the qualifications required by NBI.

Here's the wording in November 1967:

DO YOU WISH TO BE AN

NBI BUSINESS REPRESENTATIVE?

NBI's Tape Transcription Division is now planning its Spring and Fall 1968 schedule. We are interested in making "Basic Principles of Objectivism" and other lecture courses available in cities where they are not being offered at present, and we are seeking suitable Business Representatives to work part-time in organizing lecture groups in these cities.

If you wish to act as NBI's Representative in a city listed below, please write our office for information concerning the functions of a Business Representative and the qualifications required by NBI.

The description "to work part-time" has the sound of pay being offered for "organizing lecture groups." But nothing more specific is said.

I wonder if NBI started offering some remuneration as an enticer as market began dwindling after its peak.

Ellen

I'm surprised you so thoroughly missed the boat on this one, Ellen. The culture of NBI was profit seeking and financial remuneration for goods and services rendered. Think Galt's Gulch the paying to rent a car. Of course there was other, psychic, compensation. Money was window-dressing. You had to be in and wanting of the culture. Look what happened to Ruth B. Hill who wasn't really in that culture and what happened to Ayn's sister. This is what made Objectivism dangerous to those who didn't accept it hook, line and sinker and why innocents like the two mentioned could get burned by getting too close. It was important to read the literature before walking into Objectivism land, but this was cultural, not intellectual. The NBI days were absolutely the cult days of Objectivism and the leaders and followers were basically purblind as to what was really going on and what they were really doing.

--Brant

[Jerry Biggers]

Brant and Ellen:

Re: the good (or bad) old days at NBI.

From your many postings and exchanges, both of you have had much closer ties to some (all?) of the principals at NBI, and attended many more lectures and other events than I did (ca. 1967-68). So, I yield to your experience. However, I do not think that the total, or even primary, blame for the "cultic," repressive atmosphere at NBI events can be laid at the feet of the Brandens. Both have indicated their roles in what was occuring. This is in marked contrast to Leonard Peikoff's (and his cohorts later at ARI) accounts, which amount to blaming the Brandens and whitewashing Ayn Rand of any direct involvement in creating a "repressive" atmosphere (and, of course, Peikoff, et al had nothing to do with it!).

This is so much b.s. If the Brandens were the sole cause, then we should have seen a more tolerant, open environment in the subsequent live and tape transcription of lectures set up by Leonard to replace the defunct NBI series. But, in fact, from accounts from students who attended these lectures, the stultifying environment got much worse, accompanied by a series of purges that have continued on down to the present day. Peikoff, as I'm sure we all know, even went so far as to openly endorse the practice of periodic purging..

As far as I can tell, Peikoff, in his announcement after the Kelley expulsion, defined Objectivism as "officially"(?!) comprising every thing Rand wrote and/or endorsed regarding her philosophy, ending with her death. Everything post-Rand was to be considered only commentary, but not "official" additions to Objectivism (although his actions regarding McCaskey's mildly critical comments of Harriman' The Logical Leap, indicate that he now includes certain works as de facto additions to the Objectivist canon) has .. In so doing,also instituted every behavior manifestation of Rand, regarding her system, and who were, or were not, to be considered friends, enemies, or persona non grata.

I am not denying the role that the Brandens played (which they have acknowedged in their memoirs), but 44 years after being expelled from Objectivist Eden, we continue to see Peikoff and ARI practicing "cultic" behavior which is just as damaging as anything NBI wrought..

Additionally, regarding the supposed lessening of these practices under Yaron Brook, his comments to author Gary Weiss in his Ayn Rand Nation, indicate that he shows little interest in any rapproachment with David Kelley or others. His opinion of the recent tentative cooperation with some libertarians and even some conservatives (this is prior to Ellison's apparent assumption to head The Cato Institute), is that Objectivists have not modified anything. Rather, it is the libertarians who are seeking "guidance" from the Objectivists.

[Brant Gaede]

I did not say the Brandens were the sole cause. Primarily it was Nathaniel and Ayn, and--this is secondary, not testimony--more him than her. Without him in the mix, it mostly collapsed. Peikoff's serious impact was post-break and he had no entrepreneurial skill, lacked charisma and, while very smart indeed, wasn't as smart as Nathaniel's on the feet brilliance. Interestingly, Nathaniel never again achieved the quality of pure intellectual output he did in the 1960s as reflected in his book The Psychology of Self Esteem. Ironically, many of his subsequent books were much more valuable. That was reflective of his turning full time to psychology and psychotherapy. Nathaniel carried Objectivism as it was, culturally speaking, on his back from 1958 to 1968. This was possible not only because of what he was doing but because of the gigantic presence of Ayn Rand right behind him, backing him up. He could not have re-created anything like NBI in California and didn't try. Barbara could not have continued in NYC without Ayn's blessing, nor did she try after her first efforts were rebuffed.

My NBI experience was also 1967-1968, if you don't count me dropping into its offices in the spring of 1966 in full army uniform and subscribing to The Objectivist at 120 E. 34th St with the aid of Elayne Kalberman, whom I didn't know but suspected was Nathaniel's sister. Nice lady. (That was when the transit cops sniggered at my green beret in the subway because they thought it meant I was a sissy with some sissy--maybe French--outfit.) I learned years later Barbara was on some kind of around-the-world cruise. However, post-break I was still there going to FHF year after year and various NYC events that Ayn Rand went to and taking acting lessons from Phillip J. Smith. I did meet Ayn Rand once, which I don't talk about for it would trivialize the experience as a memory. I think I should also mention I had the experience with listening to BPO on tape in Tucson in the spring of 1967--finished live in NYC--so I know first-hand the religiosity that was involved there. Can you believe a reel to reel tape player front and center on a white cloth covered table as an altar?

--Brant

[Ellen Stuttle]

I heard this from a former business rep. NBI was a profit-seeking (and -finding) commercial enterprise; people wouldn't have worked for free.

So did I, hear it from a former business rep, that what the person got was free hearing of the course the person hosted.

Some documentation would be handy, but I don't find any so far.

Ellen

[Jerry Biggers]

Brant,

I pretty much agree with your views on NBI, but I would lay more "blame" (it that is the correct term) on Rand, first. I'm not denying her achievements in literature and philosophy, but like many innovators and geniuses, she dsplayed aspects of her personality that (apparently, according to most accounts) demanded obedience or practically total acceptance of her philosophy - and anything else she cared to opine on, within her Inner Circle or "collective." This went on after the Brandens were out of the picture, And, if accounts given in the three biographies are correct, she became even harder to livewith and ultimately all of her Inner Circle of friends were driven off (with the exception of Leonard).

Once again, the same aspects of authoritarian,"cultic," behavior continued well after the Brandens departed, (and actually got even worse) and it was just Ayn and Leonard running the show. True, as you say, Leonard did not display the "charisma" that Nathaniel had, and could not really duplicate the successes of NBI in his line-up of courses. But there have been enough accounts from students at some of his lectures that he would not tolerate deviance from the "party line," even in his responsees to audience questions and demanding that dissenters leave his lectures. He followed that up by throwing out David Kelley and announced that an occasional purge was good for the movement.

And ARI has contnued the insular, "raise the drawbridge,"authoritarian policies. surely at Leonard's insistence. In many ways their actions have been even more reprehensible, And there certainly was no Branden influence here! It is true that Yaron Brook has shown more opnenness, but his comments in Gary Weiss's Ayn Rand Nation gives one pause to wonder which way he is actually heading..

Oh!! I forgot to comment on your reference to groups of people gathered to listen to NBI courses. Except for Branden giving the first lecture of Basic Principles, the remaining lectures were on tape. One really had to concentrate on the content of the lectures, there was little to be gained visually from staring at a Wollensack tape recorder! I remmber lectures given in D.C., with attendees feverishly trying to take notes as the tape recorder droned on!

[Ellen Stuttle]

Brant and Ellen:

Re: the good (or bad) old days at NBI.

From your many postings and exchanges, both of you have had much closer ties to some (all?) of the principals at NBI, and attended many more lectures and other events than I did (ca. 1967-68).

Jerry,

Your wording leaves me wondering if you think that I was in NYC during NBI days. In case you do think I was there then, I wasn't. I arrived in NYC just after the break. I had negative surmises from afar about what was going on, but I wasn't there seeing the NBI culture directly. I didn't even manage to get a glimpse of the Empire State Building NBI offices' auditorium, only the front reception room area, Barbara's office and the work area where the typesetter was situated.

About Leonard Peikoff, my belief is that a major change happened with him at some point after Rand's death. In the '70s, he didn't strike me as being an authoritarian or "cultish" sort of person. I liked him in those years. He monologued a lot. I discontinued attending the seminar on the philosophy of science at Brooklyn Poly which I'd been allowed to sit in on. It wasn't a "seminar," but 95% or more Peikoff monologuing on whatever issue had come up and not giving the students a chance to say more than a blip or two. But I didn't feel that he was trying to push his opinions on the attendees.

After Rand's death, for a time, so I heard, Peikoff was engaged in a policy of putting old days behind. (The "so I heard" is because I'd given up my apartment in NYC by then and moved entirely to Philadelphia where Larry was finishing his doctorate at Temple. For a number of years before that, I'd commuted to Philadelphia on weekends.) In some material Robert Hessen posted at the time of the Hessen/(Barbara) Branden auction, Hessen told about Peikoff's initial "lets put that behind us" attitude. I don't know if Hessen's account is still available on the web. I heard similar sorts of things directly from others.

My surmise is that what started the change to the autocratic characteristics Peikoff displays today was the news of Barbara's forthcoming biography.

Btw, speaking of Peikoff's "c'est moi" attitude today, I repeat, since you mentioned the Peikoff/McCaskey issue, that I think that both Peikoff and McCaskey saw the issues McCaskey raised as far more major than some dispute over historical details. However gently and indirectly McCaskey put his objections, they went to the substance of the thesis on induction which is Peikoff's thesis. The foundational philosophic material in The Logical Leap comes "almost verbatim" from Peikoff's lecture course on "Induction in Physics and Philosophy."

Ellen

[Brant Gaede]

I heard this from a former business rep. NBI was a profit-seeking (and -finding) commercial enterprise; people wouldn't have worked for free.

So did I, hear it from a former business rep, that what the person got was free hearing of the course the person hosted.

Some documentation would be handy, but I don't find any so far.

Ellen

This is possible. Especially on the submarine. Might be some reps in big cities like Chicago and Los Angeles got some money for hosting multiple courses to many people, but I'm speculating.

--Brant

[Ellen Stuttle]

Might be some reps in big cities like Chicago and Los Angeles got some money for hosting multiple courses to many people, but I'm speculating.

The same possibility occurred to me -- that the arrangement might have been different depending on the size of the operation a rep was hosting. Twenty people listening to one course in your living room is a different scale of things from the mini-NBIs in Chicago and L.A.

Ellen