The Rewrite Squad

[Robert Campbell]

Ford Hall Forum 1974

Q&A, Track 1, 0:47 through 3:17

JL: How, if at all, does the rights of young children differ from adults’, particularly when the child is confronted with the necessity for parental support?

A: For parental support? Well, the child…

JL: Two ways: the necessity for the parent to support the child, and the child, later, to support the parent. [some laughter from audience] Which is it you’re after?

Q: Do the rights of the child differ from the rights of the adult?

JL: Do the rights of a child differ from the rights of an adult?

A: Yes and no, from two different aspects.

Yes, in the sense that the child has a right to life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Except that all these rights are based on a man’s rational knowledge and understanding. An infant cannot earn his own sustenance, nor can a child exercise his rights and know what the pursuit of happiness means, nor know what freedom is and how to use it. All human rights depend on his nature as a rational being. Therefore, the child has to wait until he has developed his mind and acquired enough knowledge to be able to come into full, independent exercise of his rights.

While he is a child, he has to be supported by his parents. Neither he nor I nor you nor nature gives him any choice about it, or, rather, none of us can do anything because it is a fact of nature. Proclaiming some kinds of rights of childhood isn’t going to create those rights; rights are a concept based on reality.

Therefore, a parent would not have the right to starve his child, to neglect him, to injure him physically or to kill him—there the government has to protect the child just like any other citizen. But a child cannot claim for himself the rights of an adult, simply because he is not able, he is not competent to exercise; he has to depend on his parents, and if he doesn’t like them, then run away from home as early as you can earn your living, if the government will permit it.

Ayn Rand Answers (pp. 3-4)

Apparently Mayhew decided that Rand’s reference to running away from home needed to be toned down, so he got rid of it.

[Robert Campbell]

Ford Hall Forum 1974

Q&A, Track 3, 0:06 through 1:44

JL: [The] gentleman says that the Libertarian Party would join in your expression of the necessity of talking to neighbors and undertaking to persuade them to bring about the sort of thing you are advocating. If that is so, why are you opposed to the Libertarian Party?

A: It is not so. They are not defenders of capitalism; they are a group of publicity seekers who rush into pup, politics prematurely because they want to educate the people, allegedly, through a political campaign—which cannot be done; therefore, I regard the whole thing as publicity seeking.

Add to it the fact that such membership of theirs, or leadership, as I've heard about consists of men of every kind of persuasion, from religious conservatives to anarchists—wh, who might as well join the Communist Party or the Socialist Workers Party, as far as an ideological consistency or firmness is concerned.

And, the, does it astonish you or not that most of those men are my enemies and spend their time denouncing me, while they're plagiarizing my ideas, without—taking whole passages—without credit. Now you know I think it's a very bad beginning for an allegedly pro-capitalist party to start by stealing ideas. [Applause]

Ayn Rand Answers (p. 73)

They're not defenders of capitalism. They're a group of publicity seekers who rush into politics prematurely, because they allegedly want to educate people through a political campaign, which can't be done. Further, their leadership consists of men of every persuasion, from religious conservatives to anarchists. Most of them are my enemies: they spend their time denouncing me, while plagiarizing my ideas. Now it's a bad sign for an allegedly pro-capitalist party to start by stealing ideas.

Another hand-in-the-cookie-jar moment. Mayhew cut Rand's equation of anarchism with Communism.

[9thdoctor]

Fiction writer versus ideologue/hack is a false dichotomy.

Indeed…it was just droll repartee geared to share a chuckle. But now at the risk of devolving to tedium, I’d agree Mayhew produces fictionalised non-fiction, which deliberately (and demonstrably) distorts facts, yet he fails to employ the skills of a fiction writer.

Barbara Branden produced a fine non-fiction novel (speaking here of PAR), using skills and techniques from the best fiction (plot/character arcs, selectivity etc.) without deliberate distortions, notwithstanding the silly debates about the timeline of St. Francisco’s drinking (http://www.solopassion.com/node/7240). I’d prefer to call her a fiction writer (qua compliment), but naturally it would be misconstrued elsewhere. Anne Heller, a journalist and not a fiction writer, has now filled in many details that Barbara selected against, such as grooming, bathing, and tomcat spray.

Wrapping up, I’d prefer to say the ARIans (let's not leave out Harriman) falsify rather than fictionalise, but this is hair splitting.

I wonder if the technique extends back further in ARI-type fictional scholarship...

Here’s a thought experiment, imagine an ARI sponsored translation of the Critique of Pure Reason. With commentary.

[Alfonso Jones]

The key point in Stephen Cox's review is that Bob Mayhew hardly ever accurately quoted a line of dialogue from Song of Russia.

Robert Campbell

I don't get it. Does Mayhew think that no one will ever see the original? Song of Russia was shown on TCM in the last two years.

Does he also believe that no one will look at Ayn Rand's original statements at Ford Hall Forum.

I don't think Mayhew has a very high opinion of his readers.

Mayhew also must have a high opinion of himself as compared to Rand, to so consistently think that HIS REWORDING is superior to Rand's original. It's interesting, reading through this thread (THANKS, ROBERT!) to see how often it is just a rewording with no major change in the logical content - - just a rephrasing. To what end?

Bill P

[Steve Gagne]

Mayhew also must have a high opinion of himself as compared to Rand, to so consistently think that HIS REWORDING is superior to Rand's original. It's interesting, reading through this thread (THANKS, ROBERT!) to see how often it is just a rewording with no major change in the logical content - - just a rephrasing. To what end?

Bill P

Actually, this is in the "finest tradition" of 19th century journalism. Journalists frequently "cleaned up" the language and delivery of inept populist politicians, making them appear to sound like statesman, at the expense of literal accuracy. Even now, there are at least four "original" copies of the Gettysburg Address, none of which agree with one another, let alone with what was published in the newspapers.

Edited December 30, 2009 by Steve Gagne

[Alfonso Jones]

Mayhew also must have a high opinion of himself as compared to Rand, to so consistently think that HIS REWORDING is superior to Rand's original. It's interesting, reading through this thread (THANKS, ROBERT!) to see how often it is just a rewording with no major change in the logical content - - just a rephrasing. To what end?

Bill P

Actually, this is in the "finest tradition" of 19th century journalism. Journalists frequently "cleaned up" the language and delivery of inept populist politicians, making them appear to sound like statesman, at the expense of literal accuracy. Even now, there are at least four "original" copies of the Gettysburg Address, none of which agree with one another, let alone with what was published in the newspapers.

Steve -

I'm glad you put "finest tradition" in quotes. I would argue that in a large number (probably the great majority, but I haven't made a count) of the cases Rand's original words were better than Mayhew's cleaned up version. That is, that Mayhew only made things less clear (or moved Rand off of her aim.) (I'm reminded of a seminar I attended at the University of Florida years ago. At the end, as we left the room, a fellow professor asked me what I thought about the talk. My response: "The speaker's only contributions were the errors he made and the confusion he created." (By the way - I think someone else used a similar turn of phrase long ago, but haven't been able to find it.)

So, in my view, the bulk of the time Mayhew didn't clean up the language and delivery. He made it worse. And Rand was hardly an inept speaker. She was a powerful speaker, great on her feat. On those occasions when a fix is needed (a missing "not," disagreement of subject and verb, etc.... he could have used a footnote to explain (and left the original as is. Remember "sic?" It works.

Bill P

[Robert Campbell]

Steve G,

That "finest tradition" was still in force 50 or 60 years ago, in articles purporting to quote jazz musicians. There are some well-known alleged statements that drive jazz historians nuts and that will probably never be authenticated.

Once audio recording of speeches, interviews, etc. became widely available, any semi-legitimate excuse for these practices came to an abrupt end.

Bill P,

With Rand's spoken comments, I've felt a very occasional need to put in a "sic" or a correction in square brackets. Very occasional.

Robert C

[Alfonso Jones]

Steve G,

That "finest tradition" was still in force 50 or 60 years ago, in articles purporting to quote jazz musicians. There are some well-known alleged statements that drive jazz historians nuts and that will probably never be authenticated.

Once audio recording of speeches, interviews, etc. became widely available, any semi-legitimate excuse for these practices came to an abrupt end.

Bill P,

With Rand's spoken comments, I've felt a very occasional need to put in a "sic" or a correction in square brackets. Very occasional.

Robert C

Robert -

You should speak with some people who interviewed rock musicians for Rolling Stone or Crawdaddy for examples of some very generous rewriting.

Based on the amount of listening I did to Rand speaking in Q&A and other extemporaneous contexts, I would think that she probably needs significantly fewer "sic"s than the overwhelming bulk of other speakers.

Bill P

[9thdoctor]

I’m sure this has been pointed out elsewhere, but George Reisman wrote an eye-popping condemnation of the Mayhew book on Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/review/R2CXRWMQ818YZ9/ref=cm_cr_dp_cmt?ie=UTF8&ASIN=0451216652&nodeID=283155#wasThisHelpful

I cannot say if Ayn Rand were alive and knew what Prof. Mayhew had done with her words, and what Leonard Peikoff had allowed and encouraged him to do, that neither of these gentlemen would now still be alive. Ayn Rand would not literally have killed them, though she might have thought about it. What I can say is that neither of them would ever again be welcome to touch a single word or thought of hers.

[Alfonso Jones]

I’m sure this has been pointed out elsewhere, but George Reisman wrote an eye-popping condemnation of the Mayhew book on Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/review/R2CXRWMQ818YZ9/ref=cm_cr_dp_cmt?ie=UTF8&ASIN=0451216652&nodeID=283155#wasThisHelpful

I cannot say if Ayn Rand were alive and knew what Prof. Mayhew had done with her words, and what Leonard Peikoff had allowed and encouraged him to do, that neither of these gentlemen would now still be alive. Ayn Rand would not literally have killed them, though she might have thought about it. What I can say is that neither of them would ever again be welcome to touch a single word or thought of hers.

Given her reaction to a one-line change in a play and her obsessiveness on the script for the movie The Fountainhead, I agree that they would surely have experienced her rage - full blast.

Bill P

[Brant Gaede]

I'm sure this has been pointed out elsewhere, but George Reisman wrote an eye-popping condemnation of the Mayhew book on Amazon:

http://www.amazon.co...#wasThisHelpful

I cannot say if Ayn Rand were alive and knew what Prof. Mayhew had done with her words, and what Leonard Peikoff had allowed and encouraged him to do, that neither of these gentlemen would now still be alive. Ayn Rand would not literally have killed them, though she might have thought about it. What I can say is that neither of them would ever again be welcome to touch a single word or thought of hers.

Given her reaction to a one-line change in a play and her obsessiveness on the script for the movie The Fountainhead, I agree that they would surely have experienced her rage - full blast.

Bill P

Yeah, but if she had edited her answers she'd have made similar changes.

--Brant

[anonrobt]

I'm sure this has been pointed out elsewhere, but George Reisman wrote an eye-popping condemnation of the Mayhew book on Amazon:

http://www.amazon.co...#wasThisHelpful

I cannot say if Ayn Rand were alive and knew what Prof. Mayhew had done with her words, and what Leonard Peikoff had allowed and encouraged him to do, that neither of these gentlemen would now still be alive. Ayn Rand would not literally have killed them, though she might have thought about it. What I can say is that neither of them would ever again be welcome to touch a single word or thought of hers.

Given her reaction to a one-line change in a play and her obsessiveness on the script for the movie The Fountainhead, I agree that they would surely have experienced her rage - full blast.

Bill P

Yeah, but if she had edited her answers she'd have made similar changes.

--Brant

Maybe.....

[Alfonso Jones]

I'm sure this has been pointed out elsewhere, but George Reisman wrote an eye-popping condemnation of the Mayhew book on Amazon:

http://www.amazon.co...#wasThisHelpful

I cannot say if Ayn Rand were alive and knew what Prof. Mayhew had done with her words, and what Leonard Peikoff had allowed and encouraged him to do, that neither of these gentlemen would now still be alive. Ayn Rand would not literally have killed them, though she might have thought about it. What I can say is that neither of them would ever again be welcome to touch a single word or thought of hers.

Given her reaction to a one-line change in a play and her obsessiveness on the script for the movie The Fountainhead, I agree that they would surely have experienced her rage - full blast.

Bill P

Yeah, but if she had edited her answers she'd have made similar changes.

--Brant

Brant -

I've looked at many of these changes carefully. Many of them make the material no more clear. Some make it worse. A few make obvious improvements and are of the sort which should have been dealt with using footnotes or parentheses. Not by just obscuring what Rand actually said.

Understand - I look at such things to a large extent from the viewpoint of a researcher (I've been a Professor for all but 4 years of the time since 1978.). This sort of finagling with the actual words makes research on Rand's speeches/Q&A sessions very difficult. It makes Mayhew's book virtually useless for such purposes.

I wonder how many other full-time professors are on OL, besides Campbell and I.

Regards,

Bill P

[Robert Campbell]

Brant,

Mayhew tries to justify all his rewriting by saying that it's what Rand herself would have done.

But he presumes

(1) that Rand would have taken the time to refine her off-the-cuff answers to questions for some kind of formal publication

and

(2) that had she edited her off-the-cuff remarks, she'd have done it in something like his manner.

And both of his presuppositions appear to be false.

(1) She never did edit any of her off-the-cuff answers after lectures for formal publication, and there's no reason to think she accorded any importance to the activity. The only publication where some editing of her spoken answers took place was her Playboy interview. [see below for an exception I didn't know about when I wrote this.]

(2) Her editing, had she taken the time to do any, would have produced very different results from his.

Robert Campbell

PS. Bob Mayhew writes professionally about Greek philosophy. Imagine what would happen were he to take the kinds of liberties with the surviving Greek text of Plato or Aristotle that he's routinely taken with Rand's remarks... And while Plato's dialogues were polished writing, intended for circulation, Aristotle's surviving work basically consists of lecture notes.

Note added April 2, 2010: It turns out that Rand did edit 13 of her 1976-1978 Ford Hall Forum answers for publication in a very obscure sheet called The Objectivist Calendar, which was issued roughly bimonthly from 1976 through the middle of 1979. It also turns out that when Rand added sentences to an answer, she usually put the additions in square brackets, so readers wouldn't think she'd actually said them. When using one of these pre-edited answers with the additions in brackets, Mayhew keeps the additions and drops the brackets.

[Brant Gaede]

Well, I agree with youse guys. I consider Mayhew's book a total fraud.

--Brant

[Alfonso Jones]

Well, I agree with youse guys. I consider Mayhew's book a total fraud.

--Brant

Brant -

Now (and I know you're aware of this, just a reminder...) take a look at the airbrushing thread on OL, and see how much more widespread this practice is, since after Rand's death.

It makes me furious. These people are attempting to play Orwellian memory hole games to eliminate the Brandens and other excommunicated ones from Objectivist history. The net result is a massive contamination of the source documents.

Rand scholarship is going to be set back a good amount by these practices, I predict.

Bill P

[Barbara Branden]

When Rand sold the movie rights to The Fountainhead to Warner Brothers, she knew she was taking a terrible risk. Although she was to write the preliminary script, the studio had the legal right to make any changes to her story, her characters, her theme, that it chose; she had no control over its fate. "I would never allow a cut version of the book to be published," she explained. "That's destroying the work itself, that's Roark's Cortlandt. But a film, however bad, leaves the book intact." That;s what kept her sane, she said, during the long period of fighting to have her book faithfully bought to the screen; whatever happened with the movie, the book would be intact. .

But she was wrong in thinking that her heir would have the minimum respect for her to leave her books intact. As we are seeing, many of them -- both the novels and the non-fiction -- are not intact. Peikoff has the incredible gall, the unbelievable presumption, to include within the pages of her novels his introductions, explaining her work -- and then to plaster his name all over her books. And he and his minions have stuck their dirty fingers into her written but unpublished works and changed her words as they saw fit.

If they hated Ayn Rand, they could not have done anything that she would have despised more, or that would have given her as much pain.

Barbara

[jaybird3rd]

Brant -

Now (and I know you're aware of this, just a reminder...) take a look at the airbrushing thread on OL, and see how much more widespread this practice is, since after Rand's death.

It makes me furious. These people are attempting to play Orwellian memory hole games to eliminate the Brandens and other excommunicated ones from Objectivist history. The net result is a massive contamination of the source documents.

Rand scholarship is going to be set back a good amount by these practices, I predict.

Bill P

I can't help but wonder if, at the start of their careers (which they presumably embarked upon with honorable intentions), the people responsible for this would have wanted to spend their professional lives deliberately spreading lies and falsehoods under the guise of legitimate scholarship.

What gets me is ... who do they think they're fooling, and why are they doing this? To "protect" Objectivism? How do they justify "protecting" a philosophy which teaches respect for the facts of reality by blatantly rewriting so much of its history? To "protect" Ayn Rand's reputation? Are they afraid that people will learn that she was wrong or irrational at times, or that she didn't always live up to her own standards? Don't we already know this, and isn't this true of everyone? The only other possible reasons I can think of are decades-old grudges, petty jealousies and turf wars, and the secondhand prestige and money to be gained from riding Rand's coattails. These are small-minded and short-sighted motives that are unworthy of the ideas they claim to be protecting, as if Objectivism ever needed to be "protected" by their kind in the first place.

I hope this historical revisionism comes to an end after those who have a personal stake in it finally shuffle off this mortal coil, but I share your fear that it will nevertheless be a setback for Rand scholarship. However, I also take comfort in the fact that it is being publicly exposed for what it is in places like this thread, and I somehow think that, in the end, Rand's work will endure and will prove resilient enough to outlive the tampering of its so-called "guardians."

Edited December 31, 2009 by jaybird3rd

[Chris Grieb]

If there is anyone on OL who still contributes

to ARI Robert Campbell gives excellent reason why one should not. You might send the BRE back with letter explaining your position.

Edited December 31, 2009 by Chris Grieb

[BaalChatzaf]

PS. Bob Mayhew writes professionally about Greek philosophy. Imagine what would happen were he to take the kinds of liberties with the surviving Greek text of Plato or Aristotle that he's routinely taken with Rand's remarks... And while Plato's dialogues were polished writing, intended for circulation, Aristotle's surviving work basically consists of lecture notes.

It is possible that some (if not all) of the works attributed to Aristotle were essentially Cliff Notes ™ of his lectures made by his most advanced students. This is sometimes done with lectures today. For example "The Feynman Lectures" (the famous three volume work on a two year lecture course by Richard Feynman) were written by Sand et al, and were approved by Richard Feynman for publication with his (Feynman's) name attached. It is possible a similar thing happened with Aristotle's technical lectures.

The Roman scholar-politician Cicero in some of his letters refers to more polished works by Aristotle which were in dialogue form, similar to Plato and Cicero asserte that Aristotle's dialogues were on a literary par with those of Plato. That is very high praise indeed. Unfortunately these more literary writings of Aristotle are lost to us, so all we have are the more drier and pedantic stuff from Plato. I have seen estimates that says we have maybe 20 percent of what Aristotle did as opposed to 100 percent of Plato's written output.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Robert Campbell]

Ford Hall Forum 1974

Q&A, Track 1, 6:03 through 7:31

JL: [Does] the unborn have any rights with regard to abortion?

A: No. [Applause] I would like to express my indignation at the idea of confusing a living human being with an embryo, which is only a few undeveloped cells. [Applause] And don't tell me about abortion at the last minute; when the baby is born, that's a different issue. The right to abortion means the right to get rid of some cells in your body which you cannot afford to support if it grows into a child.

And the idea of some bitches—and I don't apologize [applause]—trying to prescribe to the whole world, to all other women what they should do with their lives, it is so disgusting. There is one of those candidates in New York—you fortunately probably have not seen her on television [laughter]—they're calling it a right to life. Look, as one general principle, you do not sacrifice to living, the living to the non-living. You do not mix an actuality with a potentiality: an unborn child, before it's formed even, is not a man, it is not a living entity, and it has no rights whatever. The woman has rights. [Applause]

Ayn Rand Answers (p. 17)

Mayhew took some of the fire out of this fire-breathing answer. He also cut out the reference to the New York political candidate.

[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

[jeffrey smith]

PS. Bob Mayhew writes professionally about Greek philosophy. Imagine what would happen were he to take the kinds of liberties with the surviving Greek text of Plato or Aristotle that he's routinely taken with Rand's remarks... And while Plato's dialogues were polished writing, intended for circulation, Aristotle's surviving work basically consists of lecture notes.

It is possible that some (if not all) of the works attributed to Aristotle were essentially Cliff Notes ™ of his lectures made by his most advanced students. This is sometimes done with lectures today. For example "The Feynman Lectures" (the famous three volume work on a two year lecture course by Richard Feynman) were written by Sand et al, and were approved by Richard Feynman for publication with his (Feynman's) name attached. It is possible a similar thing happened with Aristotle's technical lectures.

The Roman scholar-politician Cicero in some of his letters refers to more polished works by Aristotle which were in dialogue form, similar to Plato and Cicero asserte that Aristotle's dialogues were on a literary par with those of Plato. That is very high praise indeed. Unfortunately these more literary writings of Aristotle are lost to us, so all we have are the more drier and pedantic stuff from Plato. I have seen estimates that says we have maybe 20 percent of what Aristotle did as opposed to 100 percent of Plato's written output.

Ba'al Chatzaf

In fact, given the pseudoepigraphic works (some of the letters and the minor dialogues)which were transmitted as part of the Platonic canon, we probably have between 110 percent and 120 percent of Plato's writings. There have also been theories proposed which would have us see some of the very last dialogues as including interpolations, additions and emendations that originated in the generation after Plato, presumably from some of his students. The Platonic corpus is complete enough that we can describe the evolution of Plato's thought over his lifetime, based on an approximate chronology of the dialogues, which can be divided into early (the Apology and the famous short works associated with the trial and death of Socrates), the middle period, culminating in the Symposium and the Republic, and the later period, when he seems to have partially abandoned some of the ideas he developed in the middle period. One characteristic of the later dialogues, for instance, is that Socrates has a much reduced role, and is even absent entirely in one dialogue.

Aristotle's writings, such as we have of them, may or may not have been Mayhewized, so to speak. The works which have survived were edited several generations after his death, and it is those editions which, substantially, form the Aristotlean canon we have today. (The Nicomachean Ethics, for instance, is called after its editor, Nicomachus.) There are therefore at least two layers of editors between us and Aristotle, and we have no way of knowing what changes they made before publication. The idea that Aristotle reviewed and approved the first version for publication is quite possible, but it's equally possible that they were issued after his death, or even never meant for publication--since there seem to have been few Aristotlean manuscripts available until Nicomachus and his crew went into action, the theory that these lecture notes were privately circulated among Aristotle's students and their successors has some major credibility. It's also probable that, unlike Plato, what we have reflects only the later years of Aristotle's thinking: any changes in his thinking would result in revisions to his lectures, his students presumably not bothering to preserve ideas he himself later rejected. (Although some contradictions in his teachings might be explained as being based on ideas that he came to modify or reject, but the original form remained in the text that came down to us.) Naturally, we have no way of judging what changes the editors may have made to the writings as they found them. One thing can be sure, however: the editors probably made little or no attempt to put a more literary burnish on the texts, since the lack of literary polish is one of the best known features of the texts we have.

Jeffrey S.

[Robert Campbell]

Jeffrey S,

The Nicomachean Ethics as it has come down to us includes two discussions of pleasure and the good that appear to derive from two different lecture series.

One Apollonius of Rhodes is said to have edited the entire surviving Aristotelian corpus, a little after 100 BC.

Robert C

[jeffrey smith]

Jeffrey S,

The Nicomachean Ethics as it has come down to us includes two discussions of pleasure and the good that appear to derive from two different lecture series.

One Apollonius of Rhodes is said to have edited the entire surviving Aristotelian corpus, a little after 100 BC.

Robert C

[Trots over to his book case and gets down his copy]

Thanks for the correction.

Indeed. Nicomachus was Aristotle's son; I would presume the text of the Nicomachean Ethics was connected to him in some way.

It was the Eudemian Ethics which was named after its editor, Eudemus, one of Aristotle's leading disciples.

Jeffrey S.