Why Nobody Takes PARC Seriously Anymore

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

There is something else I want to mention about Nathaniel Branden that leads me to some thoughts on fundamentals about worship. My comment that he is not a scumbag seems to have caused some ripples. It should. It is true. Nathaniel Branden is a great man.

His failings involved romance and leaving that part out is nothing short of faking reality. It is said that he would have gotten away with leaving out a sordid part of the events leading up to the break with Rand if they had not been exposed recently. More than one person has looked at those omissions (therapy sessions under false pretense), has not accepted the lopsided interpretation presented by the exposers and has understood that mankind has yet to produce a human being capable of disinterested full candor about his or her former behavior toward a former lover.

I don't know how many people who continue to question Nathaniel's character are totally honest about their own defects in relation to their own former significant others (when such is the case), but I would wager none. Not one. Granted, with Rand, a famous person of historical and cultural interest was involved, but the principle is the same. When relationships of intense intimacy go sour, only a fool would expect one lover to be 100% objective about the other.

There is only one reason to hold Nathaniel to a different standard than the rest of mankind: it is because this truth destroys a false image of Rand that some people desperately cling to. They call it "heroism" and so forth, but the truth is that it is a form of person-worship.

I felt a poignant tug at my heart when I read an earlier post on Solo Passion by a poster named Olivia. I know the feeling she wrote about because I once harbored it. I actually still do, but it runs much deeper than before and there is a critical difference. It is no longer person-oriented. First the touching passage:

I unashamedly worship Ayn Rand... not because she was flawless, but because she was a heroine of unsurpassable rarity.

To worship someone means to hold them adoringly in high regard or to revere them - and more than any other person, she deserves that from those who admire and love her work.

Heroes and heroines in the philosophical realm are so utterly scarce in this world. It is bad form to crap on such people and constantly highlight their foibles - in fact it's downright base as well as being a hallmark of mediocrity to do so.

If you have to refute the "Rand-worshippers," I suggest your crowd find another way to do it other than diminishing Rand herself.

In essence, Olivia is asking Robert (and presumably the posters on OL) to fake reality, or at least keep it concealed from her, so she can keep her romantic image of Rand intact. I am reminded of a passage in Atlas Shrugged and I shall give it below. It states more eloquently than I could what the options are at this depth.

In a strange manner, trying to keep a perfect image of Rand in my own mind used to be very much like the conflicts of the heroes in Atlas Shrugged who tried to hold on to their industries while the world was crumbling. I equate commitment to rationality with Atlantis. And travelling along the pathway of my own life, I often come to crossroads where I must ask, "Which one is the way to Atlantis?"

Here, in the controversy about Ayn Rand's shortcomings, I see a signpost pointing at worshiping Rand. There is a crowd to greet me. They proclaim and urge, "Follow that signpost. You will find Atlantis at the end of that road."

But irrespective of what Rand said about man-worship, worshiping another human being is not rational. How can one human being ever strive to become another? That will never be possible and that's just for starters. Denying the facts about such a person so he or she can be worshiped can in no way be called rational, either. Faking reality is never rational. Call it anything you want, but rational it ain't.

I firmly believe that exaggerated legend-making and denial of defects so that a person can be worshiped is an evolutionary leftover from our tribal ancestors, where mankind used to worship the ruler.

Worshiping in itself is not wrong. On the contrary, worship is one of the prizes of being human that bring joy to our everyday existence. But if you worship the wrong thing, this joy turns into hell at some point.

If one wants to enter Atlantis, worship that has denying facts—i.e., denying reality—as an essential component must be forsaken. Reality requires this condition, not me and not any human being. The call to be a member of a tribe must be shaken off and the individual much learn to feel complete as an end in herself or himself. Once again, reality requires this condition, not me and not any human being. Until such time, Atlantis will be—and can only be—an illusion maintained at the cost of closing one's eyes and refusing to see.

Here are Galt's words to Dagny. She wanted to stay in Atlantis (Galt's Gultch), but she did not want to hear about the reality outside, especially the unpleasant parts concerning her railroad.

"You'll have to hear about it," said Galt; it was that ruthless tone, peculiarly his, which sounded implacable by being simple, devoid of any emotional value, save the quality of respect for facts. "You'll hear the whole course of the last agony of Taggart Transcontinental. You'll hear about every wreck. You'll hear about every discontinued train. You'll hear about every abandoned line. You'll hear about the collapse of the Taggart Bridge. Nobody stays in this valley except by a full, conscious choice based on a full, conscious knowledge of every fact involved in his decision. Nobody stays here by faking reality in any manner whatever."

Worshiping Rand is a beautifully romantic ideal, but it is not real. I can never become Ayn Rand. Nobody can and it is silly to pretend otherwise or talk around this fact. Unpleasant facts about another human being can be a threat only if that human being is held up as a god or goddess. Otherwise, they are simply unpleasant facts and nothing more.

I know both the ecstasy and the agony of this issue, too. Giving up Rand-worship for a person like me was about as painful as Dagny giving up her railroad in a world where it would never be what she envisioned anyway. But the vision was too beautiful to let go and it took enormous suffering to accept reality instead and enter Atlantis.

The good part is that Atlantis on the inside is more stunningly beautiful than any illusion.

When I remember the past, I still get an astonished, "If only I had known," welling up from the depths of my soul.

Olivia makes a mistake when she suggests "If you have to refute the 'Rand-worshippers,' I suggest your crowd find another way to do it other than diminishing Rand herself." Citing facts about Rand does not diminish Rand. Only Rand can diminish Rand and she most certainly did not. There are some unpleasant facts about her and she exhibited stark contrasts, but so what? She was a magnificent human being and achiever of the first order. Any false opinion of her by another person will die over time, so there is no way such an opinion can diminish her.

Now, about worship. All human beings carry within their hearts an overpowering need to serve something or strive toward something bigger than they are. This is already inherent in the nature of volition amidst the organized chaos that is our universe. As we are not omniscient, but reality is and we perceive it, we need to feel that we can rise and that there is somewhere we can rise to. That place is what should be worshiped. Our minds by nature reject the unknowable to humans.

People need to worship. That's built-in, normal and healthy. So let them worship the place they can go to and become. Rightly so. There is no better.

Religious people look to God as that place, but they have a hard time getting out of subjective mode. They can't properly communicate what they feel so there is no unity among people and none is possible. Look around. Look at all the different religions as proof.

Tribalists worship their leaders as that place, but given the fact that all people (including and especially their leaders) are prone to folly at different times of their lives, and, of course, their leaders always die, there is no unity among people and none is possible. Look around. Look at all the different tribes as proof.

The need to worship and know one is right is so overpowering, it cuts so deeply into the human soul, that the very existence of a different possibility is a serious threat to many people. It is disturbing on the most profound spiritual level possible. Look around. Look at all the different conflicts and wars as proof.

But reality never goes away. So why not reality?

I personally worship reality—the infinite immensity and the infinite smallness of our universe, including class, entity and component. I do not need to demonize a Satan or a Nathaniel Branden in order to worship reality. I neither hate nor love any human being more than I love myself. As a bonus, I do not harbor insecurity at the thought of my own dying. Distaste, maybe, but not insecurity. Only by worshiping reality can I offer a top quality life to myself and to others.

Yes, this is a feeling. Who can deny that? But yes, it is also rational, observed knowledge. I am an inseparable part of reality and I know it only as I can. For me to fully integrate myself—my total awareness—with reality, I literally have to worship myself as my own nature dictates. I must look at the best potentials within myself, strive to understand them without faking reality, then act in a manner that allows them to blossom—that allows me to blossom in a state of grace. This is possible to all healthy human beings.

I may be a member of a species and I may be a speck within this enchanting universe, but to me, to my awareness, to my "you get one shot only and it's over" existence, I am a literal end in myself and I worship not only that, but what I could and should be. I am my own standard for my improvement and it starts with worship. I strive to be me.

"Know thyself," said Socrates.

Objectivism—or any body of knowledge—must add to that command, not replace it. Nothing less gets me into Atlantis.

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

Worshipping another person is wrong; it is suspension of self.

--Brant

[Dragonfly]

Worshipping another person is wrong; it is suspension of self.

Only cult members and immature girls (the two are not mutually exclusive) worship another person.

[Jonathan]

I think this is worth reflecting on:

The roles of Objectivism and Objectivists became inseparable as I contemplated their separate effects on past events. Ayn Rand had carefully guarded the term Objectivist, reserving it only for those deserving few who she felt had earned it. But Dr. Blumenthal had been appointed such a worthy party, and his behavior with me had been so contemptible that Mr Fuchsberg had considered making him a co-defendant in the malpractice suit. Only fear of diluting the bigger issue had the idea been dropped.

My friends and acquaintances, the students of Objectivism, behaved no more honorably, independently, bravely, than did the Objectivist, Dr. Blumenthal. They spoke eloquently about morality, ethics, and independent thinking. But being loyal to Objectivism and to their Objectivist psychiatrist kept them from practicing at least the last, just as it had me for so long. Further, being so loyal seemed to convince them that they were all the more ethical, moral, and independent for being so. I had known that delusion as well.

The numbers of those blindly devoted went beyond coincidence. There was more to this than just a chance meeting of several dozen sheep all willing to follow their hero, their ideal man anywhere. Maybe the "hook" was in the lesson that if Objectivism was the right way, then being a student of Objectivism made us more right than others. And for those of us who were not certain of our value to begin with, such superiority helped us to ingore our self-evaluations and feed our egos.

But maybe it was Ayn Rand's separation of Objectivists who were fit to provide answers, from the students of Objectivism who were qualified only to ask — and the acceptance by both groups of their proper assigned functions. Such a segregation of those who knew from those who didn't, certainly led the way for Dr. Leonard to assume the same authority without expectation of rebellion from his patients.

Or maybe it was in Ayn Rand's incorporation of "hero-worship" into her representation of romantic love; show an Objectivist a hero and the hero has but to take or command. In Ayn Rand's novel The Fountainhead, the herione is raped by the book's hero, "(b)ut," Ms. Rand wrote in the scene, "the act of a master taking shameful contemptuous possession of her was the kind of rapture she had wanted." How many of Dr. Leonard's victims had known such rapture? How many had been taught, either through Ms. Rand's words or Dr. Leonard's actions, that in such an act, they should? How many had tried to believe and come to accept that this was the standard by which to evaluate femininity and metal health? That this was the goal for which to strive in therapy?

I didn't know all the answers then. I still don't. But I felt there was something in the philosophy itself that both attracted people like Dr. Leonard, and blinded a group of otherwise highly intelligent, well-motivated people. Somewhere in her writing, Ayn Rand had unwittingly laid the foundation for a cult.

Added to the philosophy was a dimension given by the students themselves: the creation of a hero beyond judgment. At risk of losing all of one's friends and acquaintances, one could make a negative judgment of Dr. Leonard. So it was, too, for negative judgments on a designated Objectivist. Any of their flaws that were too blatant to be ignored were always to be weighed against the benefit of their contributions. (Is that not what Dr. Leonard had counted on the evening following his Christmas party?) What did that say about the contributions of the rest of us? The bottom line was: one group was perfect or excusably tarnished; the other group was still proving the value of their presence on this earth.

Ellen Plasil

Therapist (pb, 215-217)

-----

J

Edited May 28, 2008 by Jonathan

[Neil Parille]

It would be interesting, although perhaps not worth the effort, to analyze the various statements that Mr. Valliant has made concerning his access to the Archives and his research at the Archives.

This, for example, is Mr. Valliant on Rebirth of Reason, September 18, 2005:

He [Leonard Peikoff] read it all, he said, and told me that I would be "amazed" at how accurately I "got things," if only I could read Rand's notes on Mr. Branden. He offered them to me, telling me to use as much of it as I liked. I was later given full access and permission to use any of the materials at the Ayn Rand Archive. No strings attached.

And in 2006, when the PARC debate was raging, Mr. Valliant told us that he checked the Archives with respect to the name issue and the 1981 meeeting.

I happen to know that there is absolutely no material at the "Ayn Rand Archives" able to support your implication here that Gotthelf HAD such material about Rand's name -- I had access to all of these same materials.

No. There is no corroboration in any of Ayn Rand's notes or in any of the evidence from the Ayn Rand Archives that there was such a meeting as Barbara Branden describes later in their lives.

No strings attached.

MSK and Dr. Campbell called him on these claims.

This is Mr. Valliant on SOLO, May 20, 2008:

Under the rules of the Archive, rules common for such collections, material is unavailable for use if it has already been assigned to some project such as the new ARI book which will contain this information. Thus, if the material even existed when I was using the Archive, it was not available for me to use -- and not "part of the Archive" accessible at the time. And, obviously, this is the unstated context of the prior statement -- i.e, "the Archive" which is accessible to scholars.

This is Mr. Valliant this morning on SOLO:

Robert Campbell claims that I said that evidence had been "withheld" from me by the Archive. Of course, I said no such thing. No, I was aware of the rules, but they sure would not have stopped me from asking for something. And if I had asked for something, and had a good reason, it would have likely been provided to me. But I saw no reason to ask for such waivers.

Mr. Valliant should have cross-checked his conclusions with Archives. When it suited him, he said he did. Only it backfired.

Edited May 28, 2008 by Neil Parille

[Brant Gaede]

I think this is worth reflecting on:

The roles of Objectivism and Objectivists became inseparable as I contemplated their separate effects on past events. Ayn Rand had carefully guarded the term Objectivist, reserving it only for those deserving few who she felt had earned it. But Dr. Blumenthal had been appointed such a worthy party, and his behavior with me had been so contemptible that Mr Fuchsberg had considered making him a co-defendant in the malpractice suit. Only fear of diluting the bigger issue had the idea been dropped.

My friends and acquaintances, the students of Objectivism, behaved no more honorably, independently, bravely, than did the Objectivist, Dr. Blumenthal. They spoke eloquently about morality, ethics, and independent thinking. But being loyal to Objectivism and to their Objectivist psychiatrist kept them from practicing at least the last, just as it had me for so long. Further, being so loyal seemed to convince them that they were all the more ethical, moral, and independent for being so. I had known that delusion as well.

The numbers of those blindly devoted went beyond coincidence. There was more to this than just a chance meeting of several dozen sheep all willing to follow their hero, their ideal man anywhere. Maybe the "hook" was in the lesson that if Objectivism was the right way, then being a student of Objectivism made us more right than others. And for those of us who were not certain of our value to begin with, such superiority helped us to ingore our self-evaluations and feed our egos.

But maybe it was Ayn Rand's separation of Objectivists who were fit to provide answers, from the students of Objectivism who were qualified only to ask — and the acceptance by both groups of their proper assigned functions. Such a segregation of those who knew from those who didn't, certainly led the way for Dr. Leonard to assume the same authority without expectation of rebellion from his patients.

Or maybe it was in Ayn Rand's incorporation of "hero-worship" into her representation of romantic love; show an Objectivist a hero and the hero has but to take or command. In Ayn Rand's novel The Fountainhead, the herione is raped by the book's hero, "(b)ut," Ms. Rand wrote in the scene, "the act of a master taking shameful contemptuous possession of her was the kind of rapture she had wanted." How many of Dr. Leonard's victims had known such rapture? How many had been taught, either through Ms. Rand's words or Dr. Leonard's actions, that in such an act, they should? How many had tried to believe and come to accept that this was the standard by which to evaluate femininity and metal health? That this was the goal for which to strive in therapy?

I didn't know all the answers then. I still don't. But I felt there was something in the philosophy itself that both attracted people like Dr. Leonard, and blinded a group of otherwise highly intelligent, well-motivated people. Somewhere in her writing, Ayn Rand had unwittingly laid the foundation for a cult.

Added to the philosophy was a dimension given by the students themselves: the creation of a hero beyond judgment. At risk of losing all of one's friends and acquaintances, one could make a negative judgment of Dr. Leonard. So it was, too, for negative judgments on a designated Objectivist. Any of their flaws that were too blatant to be ignored were always to be weighed against the benefit of their contributions. (Is that not what Dr. Leonard had counted on the evening following his Christmas party?) What did that say about the contributions of the rest of us? The bottom line was: one group was perfect or excusably tarnished; the other group was still proving the value of their presence on this earth.

Ellen Plasil

Therapist (pb, 215-217)

I read Plasil's book years ago. We don't know Dr. Blumenthal's side of the story. He may not remember her telephone call to him. There probably was such a call, but we can't be sure. He probably does remember referring patients to Leonard. I certainly do believe her story in all its major aspects. She had a lot of problems and was the wrong type of person to get involved with Objectivism as it was then, plus the disorienting horror of being sexually put upon by someone she was paying to help her.

There was no "rape" in The Fountainhead, but modern sensibilities pretty much make the ostensible violence of that sexual encounter beyond comprehensible nuance in a movie though not the book. There are two reasons the novel would be very hard to make into a movie today. The "rape" can be written so no one gets that idea, but blowing up a housing project can't fly after 9/11. Without that the novel is ruined.

--Brant

[Jonathan]

I read Plasil's book years ago. We don't know Dr. Blumenthal's side of the story. He may not remember her telephone call to him. There probably was such a call, but we can't be sure. He probably does remember referring patients to Leonard. I certainly do believe her story in all its major aspects.

The Blumenthal issue is interesting, and I'd like to learn more about it, especially his side of the story, but I doubt that we'll ever hear it. I was actually more interested in Plasil's comments about her friends, fellow therapy patients and other "students of Objectivism" because I think there are many similarities in the Objectivist "movement" today.

She had a lot of problems and was the wrong type of person to get involved with Objectivism as it was then, plus the disorienting horror of being sexually put upon by someone she was paying to help her.

I agree with Plasil's view that Objectivism seems to attract a certain kind of people, including a lot of the "wrong type" of people, as you put it. There seem to be a lot of sheep looking for guidance, and more than enough wolves vying for the role of shepherd. I see a lot of loyalty, blind devotion and willingness to worship and follow heroes, and to overlook very bad behavior because its perpetrators have a history of promoting Rand and the "right" ideas. Certain people still appear to be beyond judgment. Hell, you don't even have to judge the worshipped heroes. Merely questioning some of their ideas or actions is enough to get you accused of being a hero-diminisher, or other such nonsense.

As Plasil said, certain people are "perfect or excusably tarnished," and any of their flaws which are "too blatant to be ignored" are always to be "weighed against the benefit of their contributions." At the same time, no one else is to be extended such generosity of judgment, including greater thinkers and creators.

There was no "rape" in The Fountainhead, but modern sensibilities pretty much make the ostensible violence of that sexual encounter beyond comprehensible nuance in a movie though not the book. There are two reasons the novel would be very hard to make into a movie today. The "rape" can be written so no one gets that idea, but blowing up a housing project can't fly after 9/11. Without that the novel is ruined.

Blowing up the housing project didn't "fly" with me prior to 9/11. I appreciate the idea that Roark symbolizes creative independence, and his dynamiting the project is an aesthetically satisfying "don't fuck with my creation" fantasy, but beyond that, the crime and the verdict aren't realistic, and Roark's argument isn't even coherent. His view was that he was not "paid" the "price" that he had agreed to with the project's official architect who agreed to keep their agreement secret from the project's owners/managers. He felt that he had the right to destroy the property of others because its owners didn't abide by a contract that they didn't have with him. He claimed that they believed that it was his duty to serve them without choice or reward, when, in fact, he conspired to work on their project without their permission or knowledge.

J

Edited May 28, 2008 by Jonathan

[Brant Gaede]

Blowing up the housing project didn't "fly" with me prior to 9/11. I appreciate the idea that Roark symbolizes creative independence, and his dynamiting the project is an aesthetically satisfying "don't fuck with my creation" fantasy, but beyond that, the crime and the verdict aren't realistic, and Roark's argument isn't even coherent. His view was that he was not "paid" the "price" that he had agreed to with the project's official architect who agreed to keep their agreement secret from the project's owners/managers. He felt that he had the right to destroy the property of others because its owners didn't abide by a contract that they didn't have with him. He claimed that they believed that it was his duty to serve them without choice or reward, when, in fact, he conspired to work on their project without their permission or knowledge.

Toohey knew, but he like Roark was not officially in the loop. The looters' project?!! He put one over the looters and you're complaining? Actually, he was eating scraps from the same table. At least Ragnar in Atlas wanted to give his loot back to the looted. Roark wanted ego satisfaction if not justice. It's like after all Keating got from him Roark wanted something from Keating and it was all a mistake except it made the novel go. Another way to have gone without blowing up the housing project would have had Roark in the middle of designing it and then realizing it was wrong for x, y and z reasons, including introspective reasons, and refusing to continue with Keating then going down the tubes--or whatnot. However, it really is a lot better the way Rand did it. The Fountainhead is a great example of literary art par excellence.

I read somewhere once a long time ago that Rand was forced by her publisher to cut 20,000 words from the novel. I read it once and never heard about it again. We do know now that if she had had more time she would have structured the beginning somewhat differently, with Roark either having an affair with an actress before getting involved with Dominique or getting involved with her sooner. Ayn Rand in her fiction never got a proper handle on male sexuality--and, I'm afraid, in her life. But she was absolutely right that the love and sex started unrealistically late in The Fountainhead. Atlas, being plot not character driven, is much worse. If you give up somebody like Dagny to save the world you are, in the real human world, an idiot. But Atlas isn't significantly changeable. To change it is to destroy it. Francisco's ostensive alienation from Dagny and seemingly what he had been provides a powerful force of mystery to the story.

--Brant

edit PS: Roark could have relied on jury nulification at his trial: guilty but found "Not guilty."

Edited May 28, 2008 by Brant Gaede

[Ellen Stuttle]

We do know now that if she had had more time she would have structured the beginning somewhat differently, with Roark either having an affair with an actress before getting involved with Dominique or getting involved with her sooner.

What's your reference for this?

Ellen

___

[Ellen Stuttle]

I read Plasil's book years ago. We don't know Dr. Blumenthal's side of the story. He may not remember her telephone call to him. There probably was such a call, but we can't be sure. He probably does remember referring patients to Leonard. I certainly do believe her story in all its major aspects.

The Blumenthal issue is interesting, and I'd like to learn more about it, especially his side of the story, but I doubt that we'll ever hear it. I was actually more interested in Plasil's comments about her friends, fellow therapy patients and other "students of Objectivism" because I think there are many similarities in the Objectivist "movement" today.

He remembered the telephone call back in '77 when the Lonnie Leonard issue broke.

Here and here are a couple recent posts of mine on ARCHN about the LL issue.

True though it is that O'ism attracts some unattractive people, I think it's most unfair to blame LL on O'ism. Lonnie was out to set up a personal power game from the start, and he used Objectivism. OK, fine, there was something there which he could use for his purposes, but that doesn't say that his purposes were the fault of Objectivism, any more than the purposes to which Nietzsche's ideas were put by the Nazis were Nietzsche's fault.

More on numerous issues later. Very rushed the last couple days...

Ellen

___

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

In The Fountainhead, the Vesta Dunning stuff got cut out. (Vesta Dunning, an actress, was Roark's first lover before she got cut out of the book.) Some excerpts were published in The Early Ayn Rand.

There is some really powerful writing in those left-out excerpts. But if anyone thinks Roark was a hard-ass with Dominique, look at this passage about Vesta right before the first time (on p. 454 in TEAR):

And then she saw that he was looking at her as he had never looked before. He was leaning forward, his arm across his knee, and his hand hanging in the air, seemed to support the whole weight of his body, a still, heavy, gathered weight. In his eyes, she saw for the first time a new, open, eager interest, an attention so avid that her breath stopped. What she saw in his face terrified her: it was cold, bare, raw cruelty. She was conscious suddenly, overwhelmingly of what she had never felt in that room before: that a man was looking at her.

For those who like it rough...

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

We do know now that if she had had more time she would have structured the beginning somewhat differently, with Roark either having an affair with an actress before getting involved with Dominique or getting involved with her sooner.

What's your reference for this?

I'm not sure. Probably Barbara or Nathaniel Branden or there may have been an allusion to it in that book Peikoff put out with her unpublished writings. I'll go see if I can find my copy.

--Brant

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Brant,

I think our posts crossed. There is no "would have structured it differently." Rand did structure it differently.

She then cut it out on publication.

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

Brant,

I think our posts crossed. There is no "would have structured it differently." Rand did structure it differently.

She then cut it out on publication.

Michael

"The Early Ayn Rand" does not tell us when she cut out Vesta Dunning, but Peikoff says that what in "Early" is a "continuous, uninterupted narative" is interwoven in the manuscript "with other plot developments." (p.335) The material also lacks Rand's final polish editing. I wish I knew when she cut her: just after she signed the contract with Bobbs, in a final edit of the completed manuscript or somewhere in between. Once that contract was signed she had to totally dedicate herself to finishing the novel in one year (1942). I doubt she cut the material prior to the contract for she would have restructured the novel more--that is Dominique and Roark would have gotten together sooner.

Barbara, are you the public source of my information that Ayn wanted them together sooner?

--Brant

[Philip Coates]

I'm not sure if it came up on this thread, but there was recent discussion of the New York crowd, Lonnie Leonard, Allan Blumenthal and psychotherapy. To share my own experiences, I just created a new thread called:

"THE OBJECTIVIST PSYCHOLOGISTS AND ME".

Since things sometimes get lost here, it's in the "Objectivist Living Room" forum if you go to the OL start page.

. . . It took me about an hour to write. And goes pretty deep. If no one finds such a personal / psychological topic of sufficent interest to reply on point as opposed to superficially or platonically or with a thirty second 'zinger', I'll simply go elsewhere, drop it, or whatever . . . .

[Philip Coates]

Okay. It -was- on this thread. See Ellen a few posts ago....

But it's really a new topic and deserves it's own thread ....

[Barbara Branden]

Brant: "Barbara, are you the public source of my information that Ayn wanted them together sooner?"

Here's one of the passages about Vesta Dunning in Passion:

"In the period before publication of The Fountainhead, Bobbs-Merrill, because of the imminent paper shortage, was concerned about the length of the manuscript. Ayn shortened the first part of the manuscript by approximately one third; the major cut was the elimination of Vesta Dunning. She was not unwilling to do it; she had felt some dissatisfaction herself, but she later said, 'Because of the cut, I've always thought Part I was a little slow. There's no major romantic relationship. If I had not planned Vesta Dunning from the beginning, I would have introduced Dominique earlier -- not that she would have met Roark, but she would have been there as a presence, so that the main concern would not have been exclusively professional. But there was no time to readjust.'"

Barbara

[Ellen Stuttle]

This is the first and longest of three posts regarding assorted charges made against either BB or NB.

(1) Barbara's describing Rand as using psychology like an "Inquisitor used fire and the rack."

I've forgotten just where in Passion that description occurs. It's one which Valliant has periodically harped on. He's also criticized Robert Hessen for, in his, Valliant's, view, claiming that the description "undershot the mark."

http://www.solopassion.com/node/4512#comment-52753

According to Ms. Branden, Rand used psychology like an "Inquisitor used fire and the rack." One would have thought that an assertion of this kind would be backed up with evidence to match.

No such matching evidence, of course, is produced by Ms. Branden. Nothing close.

Neil Parillle, in the scholarship you've endorsed [he's addressing Robert Campbell], called this "unfortunate hyperbole."

In sharp contrast, Hessen says that Ms. Branden undershot the mark.

If someone who never knew Rand is confident that, in this area, Ms. B. is guilty of "unfortunate hyperbole," but someone much closer cannot see the same -- and indeed is so blind that he thinks he can say that it didn't go far enough -- it is a comment on his objectivity -- not Rand's personality.

Robert has pointed out (see) that Hessen's brief comment doesn't mean that he endorses "every last statement about Ayn Rand that appears in PAR, except he wants the condemnation intensified."

I'll add that it's impossible to tell from Hessen's quoted remarks whether or not that particular description is one that Hessen even remembered, let alone if it's one to which he was referring.

My own viewpoint is that the Inquisitor image is accurate, not hyperbolic, in the sense in which I think Barbara meant it. I grant that she doesn't spell out what she means and that possibly people who weren't present in the circles surrounding Ayn wouldn't have adequate specifics to fill in details just from Barbara's text. Barbara does, however, provide some examples at various places in the book; for instance, the account of the night when Ayn kept at her into the wee hours because of the Thomas Wolfe incident which had occurred in the writing seminar; another for instance is her report, later in the book, of things Allan and Joan Blumenthal said of their break with Ayn. (Allan said to me directly not long after he'd broken with Ayn much of what he's quoted as saying by Barbara, and in very similar words.)

Further examples of Rand's use of psychology as a kind of moral torture rack abound in her non-fiction writing, starting with Galt's Speech as prototype progenitor of AR's post-Atlas non-fiction style.

Among the ironies of PARC is that the diary entries are rife with examples. So even if Barbara didn't provide adequate detail to illustrate the description...James Valliant himself did.

Here's what Allan and Joan are quoted by Barbara as saying. I think that this quote provides a good idea of what Barbara was talking about in making the Inquisitor analogy.

The Passion of Ayn Rand

pg. 386-88

[bold emphases mine;

ellipses in original;

three paragraph breaks added.]

In [1977 - Barbara incorrectly gives the year as 1978], Joan and Allan ended their relationship with Ayn. Over the preceding few years, they had had many intense and upsetting discussions with Ayn about painting and music, the two artistic areas which most interested them and about which they were professionally knowledgeable, Joan as a painter and Allan as a former concert pianist. Ayn admired Dali and Vermeer, and dismissed Rembrandt and French Impressionism as essentially without value; she admired Rachmaninoff, Chopin, and operetta music, and dismissed Mozart, Beethoven, Bach, and Handel. The Blumenthals made clear their disagreement with her choices, but would have been content to let the matter drop; Ayn was not content. Again and again she returned to the subject, again and again she spoke of the psychological and psycho-epistemological errors in their tastes, again and again she argued and scolded and "proved" and "re-proved."

"Her discussions of our artistic and musical choices grew very difficult," Allan was to say, "and often heated and condemning. She was relentless in her pursuit of so-called psychological errors. If an issue were once raised, she would never drop it; after an evening's conversation, she'd telelphone the next day to ask what we had concluded about it overnight; if we hadn't thought about it, that led to another conversation about why we hadn't. It was becoming a nightmare.

Joan added, "By then there was something almost reckless in Ayn's attitude toward us. Along with Leonard, she considered us her closest friends, but, often, she would seem deliberately to insult and antagonize us. When we indicated that we would not take it, she would change abruptly and would become kind and loving--she always called me 'darling' after such episodes--and would say that she hadn't meant us to take the criticism personally. There was no other way to take it! At the time, we felt it was self-destructive on Ayn's part; she seemed almost to invite a break, as though it would confirm her attitude toward the world. 

["]Then, too, she did not want us to have a private life apart from her. We had friends who were not her friends and that made her unhappy. When we learned not to discuss our other friends or activities with her, she accused us of being secretive. There were endless discussions about the meaning of our desire for privacy....

["]And I had another problem: I could see that Ayn's artistic tastes, and the impressive logic with which she backed them, were impeding the development of my students. It disturbed me very much to see young artists, some of whom were very talented, struggling to do 'benevolent' pictures in the style of Dali, not daring to develop their own way of expressing themselves for fear of being judged irrational. Ayn knew I was troubled; she called my concern for self-expression 'suspicious.'"

And Allan said: "Many of her psychological concepts were perceptive and original; there was a complex logic in her approach, an internal consistency. She would integrate seemingly disparate psychological manifestations into plausible syndromes. But, often, these syndromes were rationalistic constructs that sounded ingenious, but were not necessarily based on reality. They were carefully derived from her pre-existing theories of human nature: she tended to reduce human problems to simple, free-will choices--the choice to think or not, to be rational or not--without regard for actual psychological mechanisms....

["]I was appalled by her contempt for those with psychological problems. She would say: 'I don't know how you can work with such people, how you can deal with depravity all the time.' Of course, this attitude contradicted her stated position that psychological problems were morally neutral, that the only issue of moral relevance was an individual's willingness to deal with his problems. One could argue that even that is overly simplified.

"For many years, I had been aware of negative effects of the philosophy on my Objectivist patients. At first, I attributed them to individual misinterpretations. But then I began to see that the problem was too widespread. Objectivism's insistent moralism had made many patients afraid to face their own conflicts and that was counterproductive in psychotherapy. They were afraid of the judgments that they and other Objectivists would have to pass. They experienced, to an unwarranted degree, feelings of inadequacy and guilt and, consequently, they repressed massively. This led to a tragic loss of personal values. Instead of living for their own happiness--one of the ideas that attracted them to Objectivism in the first place--they sought safety by living to be 'moral,' to be what they were 'supposed' to be and, worse, to feel 'appropriate' emotions. Because they had learned the philosophy predominantly from fiction, the students of Objectivism thought they had to be like Ayn Rand heroes: they were not to be confused, not to be unhappy, and not to lack confidence. And because they could not meet these self-expectations, they bore the added burden of moral failure. These were people who were particularly concerned with morality. For them, what was seen as a failure in the moral realm was devastating. In that atmosphere, it was difficult for us to deal with the real problems."

The final break came because of Ayn's continuing insistence that they throw open their personal lives to her and have no life apart from her. They had been unwilling to leave so long as they believed that Frank would be hurt by their absence. But by now, he recognized people only rarely; they knew it was unlikely that he would be aware of their absence.

"I telephoned Ayn and said that we no longer wished to see her," Allan said. "I refused to discuss it further--she knew the reasons, of course, and I knew that any discussion would lead only to more days and weeks and months of futile discussions and recriminations."

.

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[Ellen Stuttle]

(2) Further on "the soul of a rapist."

Earlier I asked:

Question: If Nathaniel really had the psychology James Valliant says he had, then why couldn't he carry off the performance?

I'll reiterate the point, which is a fatal flaw for Valliant's portrait of Nathaniel: If indeed, as Valliant claims, Nathaniel found manipulating women a turn-on, then why could he so seldom perform with Ayn after she wanted to resume their affair?

Nathaniel indeed was making attempts at manipulating Ayn -- in the sense that he was trying to hold her at bay hoping his problems would meanwhile be resolved and he'd then have the "right" feelings toward her, and he was trying to hide from her the nature of his involvement with Patrecia. This I don't think anyone is denying, or has denied from the start. But according to Valliant's interpretation of Nathaniel's sexual psychology, the manipulating should have been an aphrodisiac.

See, eg.:

[Nathaniel's] sexual psychology does not react to values, but to the manipulation and domination of the women in his life. [...] [he] tried to control them through deception, and found his enjoyment in that kind of manipulation.

But Nathaniel clearly wasn't enjoying the situation -- instead was longing for a happy ending wherein he might have both Ayn and Patrecia -- and he was having genuine performance difficulties with Ayn herself.

I'm amused that Lonnie Leonard has meanwhile come up on this thread, since I've commented before that the person connected with the Objectivist world whom Valliant's attempted portrait of Nathaniel does a fairly good job of fitting was Lonnie, not Nathaniel. (Lonnie was even worse a villian than Ellen Plasil makes him look; he was manipulating his whole circle of clients, the males as well as the females, playing puppet-master to orchestrated musical beds, meanwhile discouraging people from pursuing careers they desired and trying to direct them into careers which didn't suit them, all the while engaged in a kind of "critical distances" lion-tamer taunt against the inevitable end result of being caught out. Lonnie was the real master schemer-deceiver. I don't think that AR would have been attracted to him for two minutes.)

Ellen

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[Ellen Stuttle]

(2) NB's supposed (according to CC) predicting that LP wouldn't release the diaries.

http://www.solopassion.com/node/4512#comment-52848

Branden was in fact on record gleefully making predictions more or less to that effect [*], almost as if daring Peikoff to do it, like releasing the contents of the journals would be too much of an embarrassment to Peikoff.

[*] [to the effect] that Peikoff would not publicly release the contents of her journals in relation to the affair.

Is there a source for this, or is Chris C. mixing it up with a different issue? I vaguely recall something about either Nathaniel or Barbara or both objecting to publication of some of the Journals which had been published, and/or to publication of AR's early fiction writing. My vague memory is of one or both objecting that AR hadn't wanted that material published. I doubt that either would object to publishing AR's strictly philosophic journal entries, or to the notes she made in working on The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. I could see a protective objection to publishing the material about The Little Street, with its possibly somewhat misleading light cast on the roots of Rand's image of Howard Roark.

Ellen

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[Chris Grieb]

Ellen; I had very little knowledge of Dr. Leonard. Besides the book "Terapist" could you fill me in on the basis of your describtion of him.

[Neil Parille]

Ellen,

I'll reconsider my belief that the inquisitor/rack statement was hyperbole in light of what you said.

In any event, the fact that a book has some hyperbole or makes some questionable judgments about its subject (which one doesn't?) isn't much evidence that it is unreliable when it comes to reporting discrete incidents.

I'm sure Valliant doesn't apply the same standard to his book. (If more evidence surfaces that Rand did spread the typewriter story, will he conclude that PARC was a huge mistake?) I'd note that Valliant himself was quite pleased with Wendy McElroy's generally favorable review of PARC, even though she said:

For example, Valliant has been accused of constant repetition, of giving the benefit of all doubt to Rand and none to the Brandens, of exaggerating the Brandens' misdeeds and motives, etc. In his review of The Passion, David M. Brown of Laissez-Faire Books correctly observes of Valliant, "he's smart enough to know that this is not all the fault of one party, however much he may have focused his mind on the task of letting Rand utterly off the hook."

I agree. But such criticism misses the point.

If Robert Hessen had said that The Passion of Ayn Rand "exaggerates Rand's misdeed and motives" this would have been futher proof of Hessen's bias.

And Valliant is the last person to criticize another book for hyperbole, overgeneralizations and psychologizing. His book is filled with it. He also overlooks it when it comes to Rand. Jordan Zimmerman's PARC database contains many examples of the former. For example, on page 51, after discussing Barbara's report of Rand scalding plates in boiling water, Valliant says, "Nevertheless, Ms. Branden, true to form, has no problem conjuring up a reclusive Howard Hughes, with uncut fingernails, fighting germs both real and imagined frm this one unusual habit." Then Valliant gives us his notorious distortion of what Barbara said about Rand's use of diet pills, which even he had to soften a bit in his revised version.

Edited May 29, 2008 by Neil Parille

[Ellen Stuttle]

Ellen; I had very little knowledge of Dr. Leonard. Besides the book "Terapist" could you fill me in on the basis of your describtion of him.

I became the confidant of some 30-40 ex-Lonnieites when the denouement occurred -- not, however, including Ellen Plasil herself; I never did meet her.

Notice the pun in the title: Therapist. I don't know for sure, but I bet it was deliberate.

I should add: I knew Lonnie himself, and felt weebie-jeebies in his presence. That isn't hindsight; he set my antennae jangling big time. He was among those who attended a course given by Allan Blumenthal from 1970-71 for persons professionally interested in psychology. (The attendees included a couple other MDs -- Lonnie's degree was an MD -- one of those his wife at the start of the course, Edie Langer. She left him at the same time, a few months into the course, that he and Allan Blumenthal parted, ostensively over differences on the theory of sex, and Allan quit recommending clients to Lonnie.)

Lonnie was in a category of bad which is outside the league of any of the O'ist listland personages.

Ellen

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Edited May 29, 2008 by Ellen Stuttle

[Ellen Stuttle]

In any event, the fact that a book has some hyperbole or makes some questionable judgments about its subject (which one doesn't?) isn't much evidence that it is unreliable when it comes to reporting discrete incidents.

I agree. My remarks weren't meant as indicating otherwise. I was just saying that I don't find that particular description, colorful as it is and possibly exaggerated as it sounds, overstated.

Ellen

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[Neil Parille]

Ellen,

I didn't take what you said as implying that. Sorry for any confusion.

I think there are some comparisons which aren't wise, even if technically correct, e.g., "Joe Doke's temper is almost as bad as Hitler's."

-Neil

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Edited May 29, 2008 by Neil Parille