The Heller Biography

[Fred Cole]

I recently finished the Heller biography.

I found it very fair. It had the good, the bad, the ugly, and the really ugly.

I also loved the research on Ayn Rand's youth. Heller tied alot of things in Rand's personal psychology to Russia and growing up as a second class citizen under the Czar.

(By the way, whenever anyone mentions Ayn Rand's distrust of men with beards, which always sounded apocraphyl to me anyway, it seemed semi plausible if she grew up in czarist Russia. Peikoff explained the beard thing in a podcast once. I thought the explination made sense.)

[syrakusos]

(By the way, whenever anyone mentions Ayn Rand's distrust of men with beards, which always sounded apocraphyl to me anyway, it seemed semi plausible if she grew up in czarist Russia. Peikoff explained the beard thing in a podcast once. I thought the explination made sense.)

As with her affinity for operetta contrasted with her denunciations of Mozart and Beethoven, the woman known as "Mrs. Logic" could convince her admirers that her chocolate-vanilla preferences were derived from the Law of Identity.

Abraham Lincoln without a beard

Does the beard make the man?

Andrew Carnegie

James J. Hill

James Clerk Maxwell

[Fred Cole]

The way Dr. Peikoff explains it is that, she didn't distrust men with beards (that sounds like a distortion to me)

It's just she didn't care for them on men. She thought that a beard is like a blemish on a painting.

I can buy that, if I disagree with it.

And considering she grew up under the czar, I'll cut her some slack.

[Fred Cole]

I'd also like to add, a lot of people here would probably like it because one of the themes in the second half of the book is Leonard Peikoff getting shit on over and over again.

[Rich Engle]

Wow, this is a fun thread! Nice job, Boys!

[caroljane]

Wow, this is a fun thread! Nice job, Boys!

Glad to see there is a southron branch of the TP Brotherhood. Of course it isn't a real trailer park if it isn't in the Maritimes..I have met Bubbles in person. Of course in real life he looks so normal he is nearly unrecognizable but eagle-eyed I spotted him on the street. He is super nice and of course, super bright.

[9thdoctor]

I'd also like to add, a lot of people here would probably like it because one of the themes in the second half of the book is Leonard Peikoff getting shit on over and over again.

There's already a lengthy thread for discussion of the Heller book. It's old news around here. I do recall very late in the book there was material about how Peikoff couldn't get a job in academia, and that Sidney Hook had warned him against preaching instead of teaching.

http://www.objectivistliving.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=7569&view=findpost&p=78246