The Rewrite Squad

[Brant Gaede]

And men are woman-worshippers? This worshipping business is the hot-air balloon of Objectivism. You get in the thing and float away no longer grounded in reality and the rational becomes irrational. The best I can say about it is it's a developmental stage of growing up and a way of dealing with palpable loneliness abstractly. Young people are very vulnerable to untoward influences especially growing up in a non-rational or irrational culture. This applies to Objectivism as explicated by Ayn Rand, especially in Atlas Shrugged, the bait and switch of apparent rationality then the irrational. A net full of fish dumped into a cult.

--Brant

Edited February 7, 2010 by Brant Gaede

[Robert Campbell]

Brant,

This is one of several Ford Hall Forum answers to questions about Rand's theories of sexual psychology.

She regularly expressed impatience with the questions, appealing instead to self-evidence.

Robert Campbell

[Robert Campbell]

Ford Hall Forum 1974

Q&A, Track 3, 6:18 through 7:37

JL: [is there] a woman in any activity or field today, a woman you would be willing to comment upon because you admire such a woman?

A: Oh yeah, there are some. Greta Garbo [some applause], Katharine Hepburn as she was in her youth [some applause], not her political views or her behavior today, but as she was in her younger days, she was a great actress. MarleneDietrich, less so.

Now you want intellectual women… [laughter] Oh yes, I can. I can, Agatha Christie. [Laugher and applause] No, I mean it. That is a woman with the most prodigious, magnificent talent for what I regard as the most important aspect of literature: plot imagination. And she's over 80, she has written 80 novels in her life and all of them, the least interesting, are better than wha, what most other mystery writers, uh, write. She's the only woman I can read with the greatest of pleasure, so I really admire her, and the ability to write ingenious plots is certainly a profoundly intellectual ability.

Ayn Rand Answers: not included.

[Robert Campbell]

Ford Hall Forum 1974

Q&A, Track 3, 0:00 through 0:05

JL: [What's] the movie status of Atlas Shrugged?

A: That it's safely in my possession. [Laughter from audience]

Ayn Rand Answers: not included

[Robert Campbell]

Ford Hall Forum 1974

Q&A, Track 2, 0:12 through 0:33

JL: [Why] do you believe so much in gold, you can't eat it, you can't do anything with it—except as you pointed out…

A: You [laughter] … Thank you, exactly. I have stated in here why I don't believe in gold, I recognize the fact of the difference between gold and a piece of paper.

Ayn Rand Answers: not included.

[Robert Campbell]

Ford Hall Forum 1977

Q&A, 11:45 through 12:06

Q: What are your views on Arthur Koestler?

A: No, no, I have no particular views. I do not regard him important enough to have any opinion of, and I have not read enough of him to form any views, nor have I any interest to read enough of him.

Ayn Rand Answers: not included.

[Robert Campbell]

Ford Hall Forum 1977

Q&A, 32:31 through 34:40

Q: Miss Rand, after the 1964 Presidential election, you said something to the effect that capitalism had a long road to go. In view of that, 13 years later do you see that road as as long it was then?

A: Uh, in some respects longer; in others not. It's hard to tell.

Because, for instance, the trend, uhh, ever since the election of Nixon, and of particularly the second one—which was not Nixon's achievement, it was McGovern's achievement [Laughter]—the country has changed, is turning to the right, to an amazing extent and at an amazing speed. In my most optimistic view of the American people, I didn't think they would awaken that quickly. But the people who are more asleep than I thought, who are catatonic about it, are the intellectuals. They are not discovering capitalism yet, and without intellectual leadership, the people are helpless.

No matter what they sense, no matter what they see in common sense terms, they are being pushed into tribes. The American people don't like it at all, but they almost have no choice. Almost—or in a few more years, they won't have any choice. Except that of course it won't take. They will not be tribalists in this country. It will take probably several generations before the destruction of men's, the people's individualism and sense of their own rights is destroyed—if it goes on for several generations as we are today, then it will be destroyed. But God only knows what horrors will happen on the way before there are sufficient intellectual voices to assume intellectual—not political, intellectual—leadership and explain to the people what capitalism is, why it's good, how it works, and why we should reestablish it.

Ayn Rand Answers (p. 31)

Mayhew feels obliged to insert an explanation of "turning to the right"—he appends "in the sense of capitalism"—that Rand did not consider necessary.

[Robert Campbell]

Ford Hall Forum 1978

Q&A, 9:42 through 12:07

Q: Could you comment on the Nazi march in Skokie, Illinois, with the issues of freedom of speech versus the overt expression of genocide?

A: Oh, now, that's a very complex issue. So long as the courts have interpreted the right to march on public streets as a form of freedom of speech, and it's permitted to Communists or Leftists or anyone else, unfortunately the Nazishave to be permitted. And in that respect I agree very reluctantly with the, uh, eb, what's that, the, uk, ACLU, uh, uh, because they do not like the Nazis but they find they have to fight for their right to march through the streets.

If we are going to have freedom of speech, and if demonstrations are a form of speech, then they have to be permitted. But what I challenge, and not only because of that particular case—I challenge the interpretation of demonstrations and actions as so-called symbolic speech. That is, uh, the first time that this nonsense doctrine has actually come up in, uh, actual events. It is nonsense; there is no such thing as symbolic speech.

You do not have the right to parade through the public streets. You have the right of assembly, yes—on your own property or on the property of your adherents or your fans. Nobody has the right to clog the streets; the streets are only for passage. I would have forbidden the hippies to lie down in the 60s—euh, it, they would lie down to show their views, to attract attention, to register a protest. If they were permitted, the Nazis should be permitted. I would have forbidden both of them.

You can speak, yes. You cannot take action on public property. [Applause]

Rand in The Objectivist Calendar #14 (June 1978), p. 2

That’s a very complex issue. So long as the courts interpret a march through the streets as a form of freedom of speech, so long as communists or leftists or anyone else are permitted to march, the Nazis have to be permitted to do it, too. In that respect, I agree very reluctantly with the A.C.L.U. (reluctantly, because I seldom agree with them): they do not like the Nazis, but they find they have to fight for the Nazis’ “right” to march. If demonstrations are permitted as a form of speech, then anyone and everyone must be permitted.

But what I challenge (and not only because of that particular case) is the interpretation of demonstrations and of other actions as so-called symbolic speech. When you lose the distinction between action and speech, you lose, eventually, the freedom of both. The Skokie case is a good illustration of that principle. There is no such thing as “symbolic speech.” You do not have the right to parade through the public streets or to obstruct public thoroughfares. You have the right of assembly, yes, on your own property, and on the property of your adherents or your friends. But nobody has the “right” to clog the streets. The streets are only for passage. The hippies, in the 60s, should have been forbidden to lie down on city pavements. (They used to lie down across the street and cause dreadful traffic snarls, in order to display their views, to attract attention, to register a protest.) If they were permitted to do it, the Nazis should be permitted as well. Properly, both should have been forbidden. They may speak, yes. They may not take action at whim on public property.

[i would like to add that the matter of “the overt expression of genocide” is irrelevant to the issue of free speech. The issue of free speech is concerned with the content of a man’s speech and does not protect only the expression of good ideas, but all ideas. If it were otherwise, who would determine which ideas are good and which are forbidden? The government?]

[Furthermore, there is no principle by which genocide — a crime against a group of men — can be regarded as morally different from (or worse than) a crime against an individual: the difference is only quantitative, not moral. It can be easily documented that Communism means and requires the extermination — the genocide, if you wish — of a particular human species: the men of ability. The communists and the Nazis are merely two variants of the same evil notion: collectivism. But both should be free to speak — evil ideas are dangerous only by default of men advocating better ideas. –A. R.]

Ayn Rand Answers (pp. 20-21)

Mayhew took a further whack at Rand's edited version. She added two paragraphs to her edited answer, enclosing each in square brackets to indicate that they were new. Mayhew took her edited answer, made a few trivial tweaks (e.g, “1960s” for “60s,” kept the first of her added paragraphs but dropped the brackets, and ditched her second added paragraph.

[Brant Gaede]

Ford Hall Forum 1977

Q&A, 11:45 through 12:06

Q: What are your views on Arthur Koestler?

A: No, no, I have no particular views. I do not regard him important enough to have any opinion of, and I have not read enough of him to form any views, nor have I any interest to read enough of him.

Ayn Rand Answers: not included.

She's blatantly contradicting herself. In her mind Koestler must have been associated with Nathaniel Branden's interest in him.

--Brant

"Darkness At Noon" competed with WTL and won but it just wasn't only because of WTL viz DAN.

Edited July 26, 2010 by Robert Campbell

[Robert Campbell]

Brant,

Yes, she was awfully definitive about her lack of interest.

I have no idea what Ayn Rand thought of Darkness at Noon. But The Act of Creation was being read by many in Rand-land during the 1970s (I read it at Robert Bidinotto's suggestion, way back when). Some of his other books, e.g., The Lotus and the Robot, also had a following in Rand-land, and I'm sure Nathaniel Branden's interest in Koestler had not escaped her.

Robert Campbell

[Chris Grieb]

It might have been the case that Branden's interest made her uninterested in Koestler.

[Robert Campbell]

Ford Hall Forum 1978

Q&A, 30:44 through 33:19

Q: Miss Rand, would you care to comment on what United States foreign policy toward South Africa is and ought to be? And the wider issue is how UnitedStates foreign policy ought to be shaped toward authoritarian governments, not totalitarian…

Moderator: Let me take that first question. Would you comment, please, on United States policy toward South African and how itought to be?

A: I have no particular opinion on that, because I have not followed the details of our foreign policy. South Africa is a very, very bad situation, in the sense that it's like an exaggeration of the faults in Western civilization generally, but brought to a caricature. Those people in South Africa are, literally, mystical conservatives. They even have a law about how an atheist should not be allowed to come to South Africa. So you know what I think of them. [some laughter] I think this is much worse than their racist policy, bad as it is.

But the interesting thing is that their racial policy—their apartheid—was established in South Africa not by the businessmen, not by employers, but by a liberal government. The people in favor of it were the poorer white people, the white labor established those racist laws. The capitalists in South Africa fought against it, but not very int, uh, intellectually, as they don't fight intellectually anywhere. It really is bad for business, this racist laws. But it's the white trash, in effect, that brought it into existence, and it still exists, and it's vicious for everybody involved.

However, turning the country over to a lot of tribes and destroying the white people is also no solution. I would have no solution at all about a country that far gone. But this would be the proper job of a philosopher, paraphrasing something that was said about Napoleon, is [sic] not to get a country into that kind of condition is the answer.

What you do after it's a powder keg and where, in which every party is wrong, and nobody's right, I don't know.

Ayn Rand Answers (p. 101)

Mayhew removed Rand's disclaimer about not having followed the situation closely.

[Brant Gaede]

Free Mandela?

--Brant

[Robert Campbell]

Brant,

As troubled as South Africa still is, it hasn't undergone the apocalyptic implosion that she was anticipating.

Robert Campbell

[Robert Campbell]

Ford Hall Forum 1974

Q&A, Track 3, 7:38 through 8:59

JL: [What] is your attitude with regard to government support of day care centers, so that women can participate as members of the work force?

A: I am against government support of anyone and anything; I am against government supporting, giving subsidies to the—which company was it in California that got it? [audience members respond]—Lockheed. I am opposed to that, and to welfare mothers and to their children. Let them, each human being, struggle on his own. The government has no right and no business to support anyone, big or small, at public expense—that's what my speech today was about.

But, ehh, the peculiar thing in, uh, your question is this: What is the use of arguing about details if you know that one course or another both proceed from the wrong premise? You have to first establish and accept or reject a basic principle. I reject the principle of the government interference into the economy; therefore, what's the use, eh, uh, if I tell you I prefer mothers on welfare or in the work, the work force? All that does not enter into a proper free economy that respects and recognizes individual rights. [Applause]

Ayn Rand Answers: not included.

[Selene]

Robert:

Have I thanked you enough for this work you are doing, probably not enough. Excellent.

These are the answers I used to love from Ayn.

Clean, clear right to the root assumption of the argument...beautiful.

But, ehh, the peculiar thing in, uh, your question is this: What is the use of arguing about details if you know that one course or another both proceed from the wrong premise? You have to first establish and accept or reject a basic principle. I reject the principle of the government interference into the economy; therefore, what's the use, eh, uh, if I tell you I prefer mothers on welfare or in the work, the work force? All that does not enter into a proper free economy that respects and recognizes individual rights. [Applause]

Adam

[Robert Campbell]

Ford Hall Forum 1973

Q&A, 1:05 through 4:37

[Original question lost in a tape edit]

JL: Perhaps Miss Rand knows of the constant financial difficulties of the Forum, and part of the reason for the financial difficulties of the Forum derives from the fact that the fees charged by speakers have grown really quite enormously. And you, on the other hand, have been a constant friend ofthe Forum and have not sought to take advantage of this, and he regards this as an interesting paradox, since he would say this is altruism, and he wonders what your defense of it is.

A: Now first, first of all, how do you know what values speakers charge? I'm not going to tell you, but if the Judge is willing, you can ask him later, after I answer, to answer you on that point.

But the main point in your question is that you assume that the only possible values one can derive from any activity are financial; therefore that anyone who wants to be a speaker does so only for a very high fee. Uhh, well, that's placing your self-interest very, very low, and terribly cheap. It's a very difficult job, which no one who wants to do it for money should undertake, because too much work is involved. Uhh, you wouldn't make a fortune that way.

Well then, what's my point, what's my purpose? Altruism? No! In any field, ehh, you all, in a proper field, you act on the Trader Principle. You give a value and you receive a value. Your question would imply that unless I collect some kind of fortune—which I don't need; I'm collecting it in other ways, incidentally [applause]—unless I am paid, I have no interest in spreading ideas which I believe to be right and true, the only purpose is to enlighten others. That would mean that I have no interest in a free society; I have no interest in denouncing the kind of evil which I can see and want to speak against; that all that is not to my selfish interest. It's only to the interest of my audience, but not to mine. That would be an impossible contradiction; if I believed it, I wouldn't be worth two cents as a speaker.

I believe that I have the most profound and the most selfish interest in having the freedom of my mind, knowing what to do with it, and, therefore, fighting to preserve it in the country for as long as I am alive. Or even beyond my life; I don't care about posterity but I do care about any free mind or any independent person that may be born in future centuries. I do care about that. [Applause]

Ayn Rand Answers (pp. 123-124)

Mayhew, or whoever made the transcription, misheard "field" as "deal."

In any proper deal, you act on the trader principle: you give a value and receive a value.

He also cut the reference to Judge Lurie.

[Robert Campbell]

Adam,

She cut right to the root principle about mothers working or not working—and put corporate welfare for Lockheed and AFDC in the same category.

Why didn't Mayhew use that answer?

Robert Campbell

[Selene]

Ayn...what a mind...no teleprompter...phenomenal rhetorician.

Well then, what’s my point, what’s my purpose? Altruism? No! In any field, ehh, you all, in a proper field, you act on the Trader Principle. You give avalue and you receive a value. Your question would imply that unless I collect some kind of fortune—which I don’t need; I’m collecting it in other ways, incidentally[applause]—unless I am paid, I have no interest in spreading ideas which I believe to be right and true, the only purpose is to enlighten others. That would mean that I have no interest in a free society; I have no interest in denouncing the kind of evil which I can see and want to speak against; that all that is not to my selfish interest. It’s only to the interest of my audience, but not to mine. That would be an impossible contradiction; if I believed it, I wouldn’t be worth two cents as a speaker.

I believe that I have the most profound and the most selfish interest in having the freedom of my mind, knowing what to do with it, and,therefore, fighting to preserve it in the country for as long as I am alive. Or even beyond my life; I don’t care about posterity but I do care about any free mind or any independent person that may be born in future centuries. I do care about that. [Applause]

Adam

[Selene]

Adam,

She cut right to the root principle about mothers working or not working—and put corporate welfare for Lockheed and AFDC in the same category.

Why didn't Mayhew use that answer?

Robert Campbell

I do not know the man, but a very tiny ego...I mean well, you know.

Adam

[Reidy]

On another thread I saw a quote from The Ayn Rand Lexicon:

Psycho-epistemology is the study of man’s cognitive processes from the aspect of the interaction between the conscious mind and the automatic functions of the subconscious. “Psycho-epistemology,” a term coined by Ayn Rand, pertains not to the content of a man’s ideas, but to his method of awareness, i.e., the method by which his mind habitually deals with its content.

(emphasis added)

Barbara Branden has claimed (either here or on RoR) that she coined it, and she was lecturing on the topic in her Efficient Thinking course at NBI in 1960, the year before Rand used it in For the New Intellectual. Unless somebody at the archives can trump this, BB gets credit.

[Brant Gaede]

On another thread I saw a quote from The Ayn Rand Lexicon:

Psycho-epistemology is the study of man's cognitive processes from the aspect of the interaction between the conscious mind and the automatic functions of the subconscious. "Psycho-epistemology," a term coined by Ayn Rand, pertains not to the content of a man's ideas, but to his method of awareness, i.e., the method by which his mind habitually deals with its content.

(emphasis added)

Barbara Branden has claimed (either here or on RoR) that she coined it, and she was lecturing on the topic in her Efficient Thinking course at NBI in 1960, the year before Rand used it in For the New Intellectual. Unless somebody at the archives can trump this, BB gets credit.

I'm not aware that Barbara has ever claimed credit. Nathaniel Branden said she did coin it. She dislikes it as far as I know based on one of her posts here on OL.

--Brant

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Brant,

You've been hanging around Valliant too long. Barbara did claim credit.

Here is her post from 2006:

Peter Reidy: "Historical question for Barbara Branden: who came up with the term "psycho-epistemology"? I recently saw the claim that Rand coined it, but the evidence I'm aware of is inconclusive. I believe the first public use was in your Efficient Thinking lectures (1960?) and the first use in print was in the lead essay in For the New Intellectual (1961)."

The term was mine -- unfortunately. I'd be delighted if I could put the blame elsewhere. It's a horrible word, and I wish I could think of a descriptive term that would be better. Does anyone have a suggestion?

Barbara

.

Michael

[DavidMcK]

What is AFDC? I'm assuming it is A..something F...something Day Care.

[Selene]

What is AFDC? I'm assuming it is A..something F...something Day Care.

Aid to Familys with Dependent Children - Robert's point being that, as we all should be, Federal Aid [taxes] to either corporate or social welfare.

http://www.lao.ca.gov/1995/010195_calguide/cgss2.html

Interesting article about AFDC and California - great graphs

Adam