"Mozart Was A Red" Murray Rothbard's Short Critique Of Rand And Objectivism


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In light of some of the new members and their desires to know more about the Objectivist Movement of the late 50's, the '60's and the early '70's which many of us lived through, this critique of those times are worth reading about.

This play was written in the early 1960s; Justin Raimondo wrote his commentary for the Rothbard-Rockwell Report.

Introduction by Justin Raimondo

"Mozart Was a Red" is, to my knowledge, Murray N. Rothbard's one and only play. It is a form unusual for him, but one well suited to its subject: the cult that grew up around the novelist Ayn Rand and flourished in the 60s and early 70s. For the principal figures of Rand's short-lived "Objectivist" movement were indeed like characters out of some theatrical farce.

With her flowing cape, intense eyes, and long cigarette holder, Rand was the very picture of eccentricity; she sometimes wore a tricornered hat, and at one point carried a gold-knobbed cane. Her thick Russian accent added to the exoticism. It is a measure of Rand's powerful personality – and the real key to understanding the Rand cult – that, after a while, many of her leading followers began to speak with a noticeable accent, although each and every one of them had been born in North America.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/mozart.html

A...

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There is an actual video of this going around. It may have been posted on OL some time ago. It's not too bad, all considered. MR was in the audience. I forget, but the performance might have been a birthday present to him.

--Brant

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There is an actual video of this going around. It may have been posted on OL some time ago. It's not too bad, all considered. MR was in the audience. I forget, but the performance might have been a birthday present to him.

--Brant

Yes Brant, I do remember that being posted here.

Happy Memorial Day soldier.

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The late Dyanne Petersen, an old friend of mine, played Rand in this video.

"Mozart was a Red" was scarcely a serious effort on Murray's part. It was written during a birthday party with the help of Ronald Hamowy, and perhaps another friend of two of Murray's, while Murray was still part of Rand's outer-inner circle. It was then recorded on a new tape recorder that Murray had gotten for a present. When news of the informal performance got back to NB, he demanded that Murray turn over the tape. Murray refused with a "Fuck you" and hung up the phone, and that became a major reason why Murray was excommunicated from the Rand circle. At least this was Murray's version of the story, one that I heard him tell several times.

Ghs

Later edit: Raimondo's account of Rand (linked by Adam) is of course a smear. He fails to mention how effusively Murray praised Rand in 1957 and rejected the "cult" account. For lengthy passages from two letters that Murray wrote to Rand in 1957, see my essay here.

Ghs

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Later edit: Raimondo's account of Rand (linked by Adam) is of course a smear. He fails to mention how effusively Murray praised Rand in 1957 and rejected the "cult" account. For lengthy passages from two letters that Murray wrote to Rand in 1957, see my essay here.

Ghs

Thanks George. I thought something did not "smell" right about that section.

A...

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If only those two had talked to one another a little more I think the libertarian movement would be better off.

They didn't need to talk to each other more for that. The personal problem seemed to be a huge ego clash and MR wasn't going to be run over by anybody. MR must have been quite hurt by it all for he never forgave Branden comparing him to Hitler seemingly for the rest of his life. The philosophical problem was Rand blowing off any non-Objectivists who may have had interest in Objectivism, mostly libertarians and some conservatives, by not making common cause in the area of individual rights. This was an effective demand to embrace the Objectivist ethics as the only way to play. The AR-MR clash probably greatly exacerbated this situation by throwing more poison into the well. Going deeper is that Objectivism was/is 90% cultural a la human action and human being, much more a personal philosophy than one generally available and useable. When you consider that the metaphysics and epistemology are common with good science and that the ethics are underdeveloped (and suspect therefore although "rational self-interest" is a big winner) and the politics Utopian but jejune, the philosophy as such has one great and powerful thing going for it qua pure philosophy--it's logical, vertically integrated structure with correct very basic principles and the implicit gravitas of science and the explicit gravitas of reason (but needs more emphasis on true critical thinking): or, it's a philosophy "for living on Earth."

--Brant

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