The Passion of James Valliant’s Criticism, Part II

[Dragonfly]

I just don't understand why a blog entry would disappear like that.

:D :D :D

[James Heaps-Nelson]

I just peeked in at SOLOP, and I saw that Neil has posted his Four More Points there as well. It's interesting to see that Pompous Pigero is challenging Neil to state in what respect Rand consciously breached her convictions.

It reminded me of the fact that I think Rand consciously breached her convictions in To Whom It May Concern, and it made me wonder which shapes Pigero and his crew of true believers would twist themselves into in order to justify the false reasons that Rand gave for The Break.

Hell, even Diana Hsieh, back before she caught The Fever, categorized Rand as having "fabricated all sorts of false justifications in 'To Whom It May Concern' -- and failed to mention the real reason for the break."

I knew I had a link to Hsieh's comments, and I quickly found it in the OL archives:

http://www.dianahsieh.com/blog/2003/03/hon...nd-affairs.html

But it turns out that the link no longer takes you to the blog entry. It has disappeared.

The blog entry was from March 27, 2003, so I looked for it in Hsieh's archives for that month and year:

http://www.dianahsieh.com/blog/2003_03_01_monthly.html

...but was unable to find it. Odd, huh?

So then I did a web search and found an archived version elsewhere:

http://web.archive.org/web/20070605134154/...nd-affairs.html

Thursday, March 27, 2003

Honesty and Affairs

By Diana @ 9:52 AM

Another raging debate on the Nathaniel Branden Forum is the moral status of Branden and Rand concealing their affair from others, both before and after the break. Here's my take:

On Wed, 26 Mar 2003, mpignotti2001 wrote:

> While I'd grant that keeping such a secret from very close friends is

> not necessarily psychologically the healthiest thing to do, I don't

> think it is immoral and that people do have a right to decide what

> they tell or don't tell friends.

I agree with Monica on this point. Neither Rand nor Branden were under any obligation to disclose their affair to friends. It was nobody's business but their own (and their spouses).

But Rand was obligated to tell the truth about the reason for her break with Branden, which she did not. If she wished to keep the affair private, as would have been reasonable, she could have cited irreconcilable personal differences and even the Brandens' dishonesty. Instead, she fabricated all sorts of false justifications in "To Whom It May Concern" -- and failed to mention the real reason for the break.

In Basic Principles of Objectivism, Nathaniel Branden argues that honesty requires that we take responsibility for the reasonable inferences of others. Misleading technical truths are not honest. Even if every word that Rand wrote about the Branden's in "To Whom It May Concern" were true, the letter would still fail that test miserably.

Ayn Rand's dishonesty in the aftermath of her break with Nathaniel Branden is certainly disappointing to me, but hardly devastating. I admire Rand as a novelist and a philosopher, but her personal conduct is ultimately irrelevant to me.

E-mail Diana / PermaLink / Comments (Popup) / Trackbacks / BlogThis

I just don't understand why a blog entry would disappear like that.

J

Interesting, now that's the Diana we all knew prior to 2004. I suspect the catalyst of most of what followed was a lot of deeply painful disillusionment with TOC and subsequent realignment with ARI.

On reading the Solopassion thread mentioned, though, I agree with Casey's remarks about the prominence given to Rand's breaks in PAR. You could make a similar list for many people.

Jim

Edited January 4, 2008 by James Heaps-Nelson

[Dragonfly]

More amusing ancient Hsiehstory:

Well, perhaps you should read it, if you are to comment on it. In it, Rand offered all sorts of (false) reasons why she was breaking with the Brandens and omitted the (true) reason of the ending of the affair. It was dishonest. It was unjust.

But here's what ought to have been done: Rand ought not have lied by inventing misdeeds on the part of the Brandens to justify her break with them.

If my memory serves me, Rand did publicly designate Branden as her intellectual heir -- but she never did so with Peikoff. That's a title that he chose to assume himself after her death. (It's one of those "If I repeat it often enough maybe it will be true" sort of things, I think -- and many people seem to have bought it.)

In any case, even if Rand had designated Peikoff as her "intellectual heir," I think she would have taken it all back upon reading OPAR!

On a casual reading, OPAR is fine. But many of his discussions, when examined in depth, turn out to be just plain wrong. Upon such close inspection, I've found his treatments of honesty, of the pre-moral choice to live, and of philosophy of mind to all be terrible.

Philosophy of Mind: His discussion is completely incoherent and betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of even the basics of analytic philosophy of mind.

More generally, the OPAR doesn't meet minimal philosophical standards for clarity and fairness (to opposing views) -- unlike other excellent Objectivist works like _Viable Values_ and _Evidence of the Senses_.

I have heard from multiple sources that otherwise reasonable people turn into snarling beasts at the mention of the Nathaniel Branden, David Kelley, Chris Sciabarra, and other "traitors" to Ayn Rand.

[Neil Parille]

Jim,

The number of people Rand broke with, particularly close friends, seems high.

The reason why she broke with, for example, the Holzers might not be clear, but her mistreatment of the Blumenthals and the Kalbermans (leading to their leaving) doesn't look good. If you read Valliant's book, you'll see that he conveniently ignores all the evidence that Rand had some flaws in addition to blowing her top.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I just don't understand why a blog entry would disappear like that.

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Neil,

I have been following your new thread on SLOP with a certain interest:

PARC: Four More Points

Both Valliant and Fahy are trying to make some kind of case, but the manner in which they ignore the obvious is obvious itself, even to their supporters. Frankly it's boring because their dog and pony show never changes. This has resulted in me doing a some introspecting.

Why do people do that?

They never change and they are smart enough to know about the exaggerations and ommissions they make. I know this is not unique to Objectivism, too. We are in the middle of an election and I see people doing this all over the place.

I came up with a speculation: a faulty premise for the normative part and the stale old Get Out of Jail card "The ends justifies the means" for the cognitive part. Here is how it plays out with the Valliant/Fahy tag-team (ain't Perigo darn cute as a cheerleader? ):

Valliant's premise: The Brandens wrote their works out of vindictiveness towards Rand and a strong desire to fabricate and maintain false personal reputations.

This premise sets squarely on a hidden normative abstraction: Rand is a Goddess and blasphemy cannot be tolerated. This abstraction, which is not exclusive to Valliant, is usually veiled and even denied to avoid charges of cultishness and so forth, but you can be sure that it is the one in use.

This is the kind of value judgment that makes it easy to create so-called enemies out of thin air. Any statement not made by any insider will do, but Goddes forbid if someone presents an unflattering fact about The Venerated One. PARC is a perfect example of deriving arguments out of this kind of hidden value judgment. This is an interesting point to analyze with quotes one day.

Now back to ignoring the obvious. Valliant's premise against the Brandens is more normative than cognitive. He is not so much against THEM as people as he is against their blasphemy against Rand (in his conception).

The flagship of worship (and blasphemy) is that it trumps reason to the believer. In cases where there must be a choice between committing blasphemy and staying factual, it is OK to throw out the facts. New facts can come along (somehow), or old facts can be worked around, but one must NEVER commit blasphemy.

The monkey-wrench in this kind of thinking is that facts are facts. They don't change whether blasphemy is committed or not. Someone once said "A is A."

There are only two alternatives for a believer when the facts are evident and he wants to avoid blasphemy or convince people to punish someone he accuses of being a blasphemer: (1) replace the facts with rhetoric, and (2) ignore the facts while going off on a tangent. Then he has to hope and pray that no one notices.

This is where you (Neil) really get under the skin of the Valliant/Fahy tag-team (and cheerleaders). You point out the raw facts. Pure cognitive thinking. Blasphemy and worship do not play a part in it. They have tried to present the facts in such a manner as to illustrate that the Brandens are evil blashphemers, but you always come along and point out inconsistencies—and not just any old inconsistencies. Some they can live with. But the ones you catch and mention are precisley the ones they have used to prove their normative-based premise. This really ticks them off.

Notice that when you state something like "PARC claims Barbara Branden said X, but here is what she really said (with page number)," a barrage of rhetoric from the Valliant-Fahy tag team ensues or a long tangent. All the while they ignore the blatant error you mentioned. They ignore the fact.

I want to psychologize a bit right now. I also think there is another reason they feel such outrage. When you present raw reality—untempered by any worship—you actually point to their impotence. They want their will to trump reality and you stand there in front of them saying that inconvenient facts will not go away just because they want them to. They lie to themselves constantly about their ability to replace reality and you show them the lie in terms they cannot deny. This really, really, really ticks them off.

They are impotent and you prove it.

Ouch.

Enough of this. Like I implied earlier, this kind of thinking appears to be a built-in human failing. It is rampant in election discussions. There is only one cure: a conscious commitment to get the cognitive part right (in any issue) BEFORE allowing the normative part to set the person's terms of action. Like I have said several time: how can you evaluate something correctly if you don't know what it is?

The good news is that your recent thread on SLOP shows clearly that Valliant and Fahy are a tag-team pushing a counterfeit view of the facts and everyone else (except a cheerleader or two) is bored with it all. That piece of trash called PARC is dying dead for all but Rand-worshippers and/or Branden-haters.

Michael

[Rich Engle]

From a practical standpoint, taking the immovable-wall-type stance they have puts them in a unenviable position. Meaning, they really aren't in a place where they dare make a single concession--that would tumble the whole house 'o cards.

And that shows it. It would never fly in academic writing. In most cases any responsible/realist kind of writer would be more flexible and open to at least minor concessions/changes. But they don't, and that just turns to the propaganda/brickwall department. Anti-apologists.

There would just be too much loss of face to back down on anything.

I mean, without all of it, they really don't have much left, least of all wiggle-room. They're kind of stuck in that respect. Sad to watch, even watching those two try to hold down their fort.

rde

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I don't know where else to put this, so I will do it here in this catch-all Valliant thread (which seems a fitting tribute to Neil's fine work). By all means, let's make sure it is on record since it is practically a first. The following quote by Valliant is from this post here.

In any event, Rand and Peikoff left Branden stuff in CUI. It's there to this very day. The stuff Branden wrote for The Objectivist is terrific. I understand that others have a different position, and certainly don't see why such a different opinion should be "off limits," but, in my view, The Psychology of Self Esteem is simply a classic.

After a couple of years listening to and reading all the incompetent and malicious crap Valliant has spouted against the Brandens, the reader must forgive me if I entertain some unflatterting speculations on the motivation for this sudden sunny benevolence.

I entertain my unflatterting speculations almost to exclusivity, but I will keep my peace about them for now. Valliant's most recent words are right there in the quote above. Let the reader make of them what he will.

Michael

[Dragonfly]

When I read that thread on Solo, I have to open my window to remove the stench that comes out of my computer.

[Chris Grieb]

I find it interesting that Valliant doesn't mention the Branden articles in VOS. I'm glad he finally recognized that Branden's articles had been left in CUI.

For a while after there was a suggestion that Rand had practically written Branden's articles for him.

[John Dailey]

~ I have to 'chime in' here, re everyone's dyspepsia over Rand's "To Whom It May Concern." --- First off, notice the title: ie, does it 'concern', personally, *you*? It sure don't me, but responses by others show that they feel she had a moral-obligation of spelling out all details to us anonymous readers. That probably would've taken another whole issue of THE OBJECTIVIST; worthwhile expenditure of resources...not. I stress that word 'feel' (about her expected/desired/demanded 'should have' which she supposedly defaulted on.)

~ All the hoohawrah over it seems to innuend/insinuate/'imply' that she out-and-out 'lied' (I think someone actually asserted [but not really 'argued'] that.) I never read a believably unbiased argument for such.

~ I'm still awaiting a solid argument that she 'lied.' Elsewise, I'd rather watch the scandals about Britney on E!

LLAP

J:D

Edited January 19, 2008 by John Dailey

[Robert Campbell]

John,

Ayn Rand was emphatic in her condemnation of half-truths. In a Q&A session after one of Leonard Peikoff's 1976 lectures, she said:

What I regard as vicious is when you agree to discuss an issue with someone, yet you do not tell the whole truth. That's more misleading than simple lying, which is bad enough. (Ayn Rand Answers, p. 129)

"To Whom It May Concern" was broadcast at everyone in the Objectivist world, as it was then constituted. It was full of half-truths and misleading statements. Not mentioning her affair with Nathaniel Branden, not mentioning that he jilted her, made the intensity of the condemnation and failure to specify most of NB's purported misdeeds seriously deceptive.

Robert Campbell

[Ellen Stuttle]

"To Whom It May Concern" was broadcast at everyone in the Objectivist world, as it was then constituted. It was full of half-truths and misleading statements. [....]

And of strongly worded moral charges and evaluations. Since when is it just to make such charges while leaving out any specifics of the reputedly wrong actions?

John, have you read the statement in all the years since it appeared? Do you know the details of the sorts of moral breaches it alleges...and of the holes where it does not say, in particular, what the accused did to occasion the charge?

Ellen

___

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

First off, notice the title: ie, does it 'concern', personally, *you*? It sure don't me, but responses by others show that they feel she had a moral-obligation of spelling out all details to us anonymous readers. That probably would've taken another whole issue of THE OBJECTIVIST; worthwhile expenditure of resources...not.

John,

It certainly concerned those who were learning Objectivism from NBI.

I don't agree that it would have taken a whole issue of The Objectivist. Here. Let me give you an example:

"I have been having an affair with Nathaniel Branden for 14 years and we broke up. I will not explain the matter further as it is actually nobody's business but ours. Make of it what you will."

See? Easy. Not a whole volume at all.

Michael

[Chris Grieb]

Miss Rand and Dr. Branden's physical relationship ended with the publication of Atlas Shrugged. She seemed to have wanted to begin it again in the early 60ths when Dr. Branden had already met Patricia and was having a relationship with this younger woman.(I am sorry I do not know Patricia's last name.) Dr Branden had denied to several people the relationship with the younger woman.

All of the above is the big charge of deception of several people in TWIMC.

I also think that makes your statement of a relationship lasting fourteen yours not true Michael.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Chris,

Your facts are in error. Rand and NB had "honeymoon periods" after Rand wanted to resume the affair. This is documented by both in their writings—her in the journals and him in JD and MYWAR. And by Barbara in Passion.

Michael

[Chris Grieb]

Michael; I stand corrected.

I assume the journal entries are in PARC a book I have but have not read.

I had thought the physical relationship ended after the publication of Atlas. I have definitely gotten the impression that Miss Rand wanted to start it up again.

My view of PARC is summed up in the great line that I believe came from Dorothy Parker. "This is not a book to be tossed aside lightly but hurled with great force."

[Ellen Stuttle]

HEAR YE, HEAR YE!!

On another thread (here), Wolf posted links to a discussion of Durban House.

Absolute Write has 31 posts on Durban House

http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=812

...which is tied to Lindsey's Literary Services (editorial) and Karen Lewis & Co (agents):

http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=13729

There's incredible stuff about Durban House. See the analysis from post #19 and following.

Here's a summary from post #23:

Let me get this straight:

-- The publisher gets all rights, exclusively, including all subsidiary and derivative rights, for the life of the copyright. That is, the publisher can do anything they want with this book (including doing nothing at all), and the author can never, ever get it back.

-- The author has no right to approve or disapprove of editorial changes. Among other things, this means that if they publish your book without proofreading it, or otherwise make a hash of your text, you have no grounds for complaint.

-- Royalties are paid on net, or on wholesale price minus a bunch of costs known only to the publisher, rather than cover price.

-- The option and noncompetition clauses are extraordinarily author-unfriendly, but the worst they can do is make it impossible for you to have any further writing career. They're still less frightening than that warranty and indemnity clause.

Victoria, is there any vestige or trace of a reversion clause in that thing?

-- Clause 9 of the Service Agreement reminds me of nothing so much as Item 23 in the PublishAmerica contract, which I wrote about last year.

-- Clause 23 of Durban's contract is like nothing I've ever seen before. You're expected to waive any conflict-of-interest claims if your supposed "agent" turns out to have been acting as an employee of the publishing house when she sold them your book? What an amazing piece of effrontery! It's like Durban's pinned a great big button on their collective lapel that say "Hi, I'm a Crook -- Ask Me How!"

-- And all this can be yours for only $25,000!

Mr. Lewis, you are dishonest and exploitive. Don't tell us that you meant well, or that there were extenuating circumstances, or that we don't understand what you've been doing. I hope your operation crashes and burns, and that when it does, you lose both your reputation and your shirt.

Victoria, the list moderator and expert informer, responds to the question:

"Victoria, is there any vestige or trace of a reversion clause in that thing?":

More or less. There's a fairly detailed description of the steps the author must take to trigger reversion, but they're rendered more or less moot by the rest of the clause, which begins: "If the Publisher fails to keep the Work in print..." and later states: "...if the Publisher shall determine that there is not sufficient sale for the Work to enable it to continue its publication and sale profitably..." That's all the mention that's made of discontinuing print. So "out of print" really is not defined, and reversion is left entirely to the discretion of the publisher. It's a bad clause.

God, I just saw something else.

According to Clause 7, "Within twenty-four (24) months of Publisher's acceptance of the Work described above, it shall publish the work at its own expense in the United States unless delayed by circumstances beyond its control...In the event Publisher does not publish the work within that time period, Author shall have the right to place the work with another Publisher upon one hundred twenty days written notice, provided Publisher has not begun publishing within that time period. In the event that Author places the work with another publisher pursuant to this clause, Author shall have no claim against Publisher."

And Clause 17: "Publisher shall not be obligated to exercise or license any rights herein granted."

So Durban House can take the author's $25,000 and never ever publish his book. And if Durban House doesn't publish his book, the only way the author could conceivably get free (and since no mention is made of actually returning rights, it isn't clear that the author really would be free) is if he places the book with another publisher (and how interested is another publisher going to be in a book that's tied up by another contract?)...in which case, he can't bring action against the publisher to get his $25,000 back.

Diabolical.

- Victoria

Yikes, what a rip-off joint.

Ellen

___

[Ellen Stuttle]

A thread has been started on SOLO titled "Famous amphetamine addict" - thanks, Barbara" (See).

The title refers to Valliant's suggestion that Barbara herself, in the guise of laying rumors to rest, was the source of the idea that Rand was addicted to speed. According to things I've heard, the rumors Barbara speaks of indeed were in circulation, especially amongst West Coast libertarian-oriented folk, before her biography appeared.

In any event, her biography isn't the only published source for the report that Ayn took diet pills for many years. Roy Childs, in his (posthumously published) Liberty interview, told a more extreme version:

"Ayn Rand, Objectivism and All That"

Roy A. Childs, Jr, interviewed by Jeff Walker

Liberty

Volume 6, Number 4, April 1993, pg. 33

Childs: [....] An awful lot of the Objectivists I knew were people in transition to libertarianism. And a lot of them scuttled the morality and got into rock music and all sorts of drugs. You know, the first time they used marijuana, got high and listened to Led Zeppelin or The Moody Blues.

Walker: You mean they got unfocused? God, Ayn Rand would have gone crazy if she'd known that any of her followers were into marijuana and Led Zeppelin.

Childs: This is something I fought with the Blumenthals about. I know that she took Dexadrine every day for forty years.

Walker: But low dosages, according to Barbara Branden.

Childs: Her secretary told me that she'd take a couple of five milligrams, and if nothing happened in an hour, she'd take another two, or three, or four. She was taking this on top of pots of coffee. I took Dex as a diet pill, so I know this stuff, for two years. I know the effects of the thing. Dexadrine does produce things like paranoia, suspicion of other peolple and nervousness, and a lot of things that became traits of her character.

Walker: She was taking this for forty years?

Childs: She started taking it as a diet pill back in the '30s.

Walker: So you think that might have had more to do with how her personality developed than Barbara Branden says?

Childs: Do you remember that picture of her with her Napoleon hat and her cigarette holder at the House Committee on Un-American Activities hearings? Doesn't she look like a speed freak in that picture? She looks like a cobra ready to strike, extremely high and high-powered and intense and tense. I think there's a lot more than meets the eye there.

All of which is a digression on the issue of drugs. Rand and her group liked certain drugs. They liked nicotine and they liked caffeine and they liked uppers. I imagine she would have gone for coke. I'm not sure if she ever did, but she was hanging around Hollywood in the '20s and '30s, and it was very big then in the movie and music industry.

Walker: How did they deal with alcohol at these parties? Were people allowed to drink? Get drunk?

Childs: Not drunk, but she didn't censor it. She herself didn't drink much. She didn't like it. [....]

.

___

[Daniel Barnes]

I suppose the secretary is no longer with us?

Speed does make you talk nonsense very intensely. And at the time you're sure it's a vitally important intellectual insight.

[Ellen Stuttle]

I suppose the secretary is no longer with us?

I don't know which secretary it (supposedly) was. He didn't say. And repeating my general warning re Roy Childs stories: He was a great raconteur, but not reliable as to accuracy. The reason I posted the excerpt was to show that Barbara's published denial that Rand was an amphetamine addict isn't the only published source for the idea that she was. Childs outright said she was -- and that Barbara's account understated. Thus blaming what Barbara wrote for what Childs said...would be more than a bit of a stretch.

Ellen

___

Edited February 1, 2008 by Ellen Stuttle

[Neil Parille]

Incidentally, in PARC, Valliant doesn't claim that Barbara Branden mentions or created this rumor as a circuitous way of attacking Rand. His only contention there is that Barbara speculated that Rand was addicted to diet pills and that it seriously affected her mental functioning.

It was only after I pointed out that Valliant misrepresented what she wrote that he came up with this back-up argument.

[Robert Campbell]

"Who put the Dexedrine

In Mrs. Murphy's Ovaltine?"

--Harry "The Hipster" Gibson

I don't know why, but Jeff Walker doesn't know how to spell Dexedrine. He gets it wrong in the published interview with Roy Childs, and again in his book The Ayn Rand Cult.

What Ayn Rand actually took was called Dexamyl. It was supposedly compounded out of Dexedrine and a barbiturate.

I've heard the "Rand was addicted to speed" story from West Coast Randians who I very much doubt got it out of reading Barbara Branden's book.

Robert Campbell

[John Dailey]

Robert:

~ Sorry for the 'lag' time in responding; life-situations and all that.

~ Re your quoting (post #112 herein) of Rand re "...condemnation of half-truths. In a Q&A session [not to be confused with a 'thought-out' lecture, per se] after one of LP's '76 lectures, she said..." ---All I can say is 'interesting', but, you innuend that such is...relevent. I miss the insinuated logical connection therein.

~ Where she refers to the idea of "...when you agree to discuss an issue with someone..." I missed the 'agreement' about willingness to 'discuss' the issue in "To Whom It May Concern." Could you point it out so as to establish her (non-'bashing' of course) innuended hypocrisy?

~ She gave an 'explanation' as to why there'd be no more issues. Her explanation necessitated her explicating her views re her relationships with the Brandens. Apparently you, as others, see that 'explanation' as necessitating...further 'explanations.'

2Bcont

LLAP

J:D

[John Dailey]

~ I have this 14-yr-old who's learned the worthwhileness of how to procrastinate doing a chore by sophistrally starting off with the (genetic-for-kids, I think) "Why?" and manipulatively turning the 'explanation' I give into an unexpected (by moi) 'disussion' about the subject...as a way of avoiding/evading the plain ol' DOING of it. In short, the 'explanation' was not enough; clearly, when one wants to avoid accepting what's an 'explanation', NO further 'explanations' of the original one would, or can, EVER be acceptable as...enough.

~ I see this re criticizers of "To Whom It May Concern."

2Bcont

LLAP

J:D

Edited February 9, 2008 by John Dailey