Why Nobody Takes PARC Seriously Anymore

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

For the record, Valliant has just explained what his illness has been:

I have been unable to work as an attorney for two years now, and my condition has not improved. If you don't mind, I won't describe the rather unpleasant condition from which I suffer. Let's just stick to the technical term "hyperemesis," okay?

Even being a translator, I had to look this one up. It basically means excessive vomiting. Usually the cause is unknown. It is most often given as hyperemesis gravidarum, i.e., morning sickness. Not being pregnant and presumably not knowing the cause, Valliant speculates (in the same post):

This could, of course, be the result of considering the Branden biographies for such an extensive period of time. This task requires a cast-iron stomach.

Well... since Valliant did open the gate to speculating on the cause of his illness (using even his own illness as an opportunity to make a quip to smear the Brandens), how about another speculation?

Maybe Valliant is starting to realize that he is the bonehead he is because of seeing his own boneheadedness exposed to his face time and time again. I speculate, but I doubt Valliant thinks he is a bonehead. I would wager he thinks he is rational and so forth. So when the fact that he is a bonehead gets shoved in his face in undeniable terms, whaddya do?

You stonewall it as best you can in public and puke your guts out in private.

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

Thirty years ago after a boating trip through the Grand Canyon I came down with both Giardiasis and Amoebic dysentary. After several ineffective treatments and one effective I was cured but still left with gastrointestinal upset. A lady who had gotten AD in Greece told me to eat only rice and yogurt with live cultures for five days to a week. I managed to stand it for three days--I salted the rice but used no butter--but that was enough. The upset symptoms were gone. If you throw up and the cause isn't in the stomach the small intestine might be the cause. It might need a rest and/or a change. You throw up stuff that won't go down. My dog will sometimes mouth and swallow a small rock. He throws it up subsequently. The small intestine will not accept it. Hyperemesis g. is not a disease (not yet IDed anyway), but a condition associated with pregnancy. It is obvious that JV needs an abortion(?!).

--Brant

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Brant,

Do you mean that the cause of Valliant's illness might not be the Brandens?

What a strange thought...

Michael

EDIT: I am adding this edit to this post because I don't want to make a separate post just to give free publicity to Siberia Passion. Neil is taking apart Valliant once again and Valliant just keeps digging his hole deeper and deeper. Should anyone be interested in reading more of Valliants evasive answers and smarmy rhetoric, start here. (Actually, there was a good part for a change—it was short, but one can't hope for miracles—where Valliant quoted Rand's letters about reading her writing in longhand to Frank for his opinion before typing the pages. I enjoyed reading that. I wonder if that kept up after she started her affair with Nathaniel.)

It is kinda cute seeing Perigo as a cheerleader since nobody else will do anything of substance. What a caricature in real life. I wonder if the pipes in his email pipeline are humming, I wonder I wonder...

[Ellen Stuttle]

I've been trying not to comment on the latest PARC stuff, since I haven't time for disputing. But there are two points I feel obligated to make.

The first is in regard to Jim Valliant's claim:

[Here]

One has to work pretty hard not to see the reasons to doubt the idea that a lack of intellectual communication in the 1940s was causing such dramatic relationship-ending considerations as are alleged, when the private Rand correspondence published since the release of PAR reveals that Rand was reading Atlas -- sequence by sequence -- to O'Connor in the 1940s -- and caring so very much what he thought about it, and, specifically, what he thought about things like its philosophical "scope." Or, doubting this "lack" from something lacking in the kind of visibility his obviously intense, if hard-won, reactions gave her.

I think that Ayn's letter to a friend which Valliant cites as prime evidence counter the claim that Ayn might have considered divorce is instead evidence that indeed Ayn might well have been feeling enough dissatisfaction over her communication with Frank to entertain the idea of divorcing him, since the letter indicates that he was being -- "[f]or a long time" -- what she might have felt was intolerably slow to see the significance of Atlas.

[Here]

[The quote is from a letter of Ayn's.]

"For a long time, Frank refused to agree with me that it [Atlas Shrugged] was bigger in scope and scale than The Fountainhead —and he is the first person who hears every sequence as I write it. I read it to him from my longhand before I have it typed. Well, not long ago, he was so impressed with a sequence I read that he was literally shaking and he gave in and said it was bigger than The Fountainhead. By the way, he is a severe critic, and getting a compliment from him is like pulling a tooth." (Letters, p. 437, and in PARC at p. 161)

The second point pertains to people's being puzzled by the Rand/O'Connor marriage: quite a few of the New York O'ists I knew found the marriage puzzling; they wondered what Ayn saw in Frank and why she claimed that he had the characteristics of her fictional heroes. (She did make such claims in public; there might be records in Q and A's of some of her Ford Hall appearances.)

I recall some long, long conversations with one friend in particular in which I attempted to explain to him:

(a) that the psychology of sexual relationships is way more complex than AR's theories indicate;

(b ) that probably what she really got from the relationship with Frank was something other then the sort of hero-admiration she said she got.

i.e., that the relationship would remain puzzling as long as one assumed Rand's sexual theories as being descriptive of how the relationship really was, since the relationship didn't fit those theories.

I had similar conversations with other friends -- there's one friend with whom I still have such conversations.

Valliant I expect would disregard this report as not pertaining to persons who knew the O'Connors well, but others might find it of interest.

Ellen

___

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I just had a weird thought I want to toss around and here seems to be the best place to do it.

In all this discussion of the break between Rand and the Brandens and Frank this and Frank that, a question popped into my mind that I don't recall being discussed. Did Frank break with the Brandens or did he just follow where Rand led?

I get the impression that he simply kept his peace and allowed his wife to dictate policy. By all accounts, he seems to have simply wanted to stay out of the hostilities.

Does anyone know of Frank bad-mouthing either of the Brandens after the break?

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

I've been skimming the older debates on PARC, and it doesn't seem that anyone other than Valliant and Fahy were actually intererested in defending PARC in any detail.

Enjoy your trip to California, Neil, "Dances with Wolves."

--Brant

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

LET'S SEE IF THIS BECOMES REALITY.

Valliant's most recent post on SOLOP:

Here's The Text I Just Sent

Submitted by James S. Valliant

on Thu, 2008-08-21 03:50.

Dear Jeff,

I have another, special request. It might be easier if I just share my recent web-exchange with Mr. Parille:

Title: He's...

Submitted by James S. Valliant on Thu, 2008-08-21 03:29.

.. in my Mac "Address Book" and just wrote me this morning.

The email will be out by tomorrow noon, asking if early October is okay.

This is SUPER!

Title: DEAL

Submitted by Neil Parille on Thu, 2008-08-21 03:25.

Why don't you email Mr. Britting. I'm not sure if I still have his email.

Early October looks good for me.

Title: DEAL

Submitted by James S. Valliant on Thu, 2008-08-21 03:19.

But for one aspect: I insist on taking you to a nicer dinner than a moderate price will allow.

With your permission, I will copy and paste the whole of your last post, and this one, and attach it to an email to Mr. Britting, endorsing your basic terms: asking him to make available every interview in their possession, along with all of the Rand notes available to me -- or those acquired since -- indeed, everything in their possession whatever -- and asking him to allow your public report on everything that relates to anything in PARC -- and asking if he is in agreement with such terms.

Or, if you prefer, you could write him yourself, reporting that I have personally asked that he agree.

Title: Yes, I Am Serious

Submitted by Neil Parille on Thu, 2008-08-21 03:06.

Jim,

I am serious.

I will fly out to California, completely at my own expense (hotel, flight, meals, rent a car, etc.). I'll even pay for my own Rice-a-Roni.

I ask that I be permitted to listen to any interviews and examine any Rand journals and report to the SOLO/OL crowd --"Interview x supports/does not support the Brandenian account because of y." If I believe that you have not accurately transcribed certain journal entries, I ask to be permitted to discuss why.

I don't ask to transcribe/photcopy any verbatim transcript, just report whether the "sense" of an interview/journal document supports/refutes the Brandenian account.

If you and your lovely wife are close by, I'll even pay for dinner at a moderately priced Italian restaurant.

----

Please say "yes."

Jim Valliant

Should this come to pass, and should there be no monkey-business, this will be a very good thing. I will not speculate at this point except to say that what I have seen of Britting's work so far, I have liked.

As far as dinner is concerned, here is a unique opportunity to make a foodfight become real.

Michael

[Mark]

Ellen,

May I comment on your last post even though I’ve read only a small fraction of this thread?

... Yes. [My imagination saves you the trouble of replying. {smile}]

You say there’s evidence that AR “might well have been feeling enough dissatisfaction over her communication with Frank to entertain the idea of divorcing him ..., ” the evidence being a letter by AR indicating “she might have felt” that he “was intolerably slow to see the significance of Atlas.”

If I’ve understood the gist of your position correctly then I’d like to argue otherwise. You hedge rather a lot with that “might have ” — which means you’d entertain “might have not” — but the tone of your remark, what you seem to want to convince the reader of, is that AR’s letter strongly suggests that she felt her husband was intolerably slow to see the significance of AS, and the stand-out word is “intolerably.”

Yet reading the letter excerpt you provided, the whole tone of it is one of general admiration for her husband. There’s no “intolerably” there, nothing like it — I don’t sense any negative emotion at all. This includes the remark about his being a severe critic — “pulling a tooth” etc. — which only serves to highlight his compliment.

Would you reconsider this point (which doesn’t cover all your post)?

Mark

Edited August 26, 2008 by Mark

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Here's a small observation. Valliant claims he made the request last Thrusday for Neil to examine the ARI archives (at least that is the date on his post) and there has been no news published since.

It might be too soon for a response from Britting but it might not. Or he might have responded (one way or the other) and Valliant is sitting on the answer.

At any rate, the issue is in the air as far as the public is concerned, that is, those who still take PARC seriously. The rest don't care.

I'm just sayin'...

Michael

[william.scherk]

At any rate, the issue [Parille to be conveyed to the Ayn Rand Archive] is in the air as far as the public is concerned, that is, those who still take PARC seriously. The rest don't care.

Yeah, nobody cares except those who care. And nobody takes the book seriously except for those who take the book seriously.

But seriously, fans of own-goal moments in Objectivism do have Lindsay Perigo's last petulant squall of outrage, this time directed to Bill Nevin:

"But in my book, Mr. Nevin, you're a hypocrite, an appeaser and a two-faced soft-cock."

What is hilarious about the outburst is that Nevin had just popped in with encouragement and praise for James Valliant (seems Mr Nevin has had gas in his bloodstream for a good long while over the subject of TheBrandens™). Perhaps it was the wee tinkle of approbation for the Atlas Society that kicked Perigo into fifth gear.

There are hardly any serious readers/responders left at SOLO, so I don't see why the Emperor of SOLO has to be such a snarky, bilious bitch to Nevin.

[Neil Parille]

WSS,

I bet SOLO traffic at least doubles when you or I post something concerning Mr. Valliant's attack on the Demented/Demonic Duo.

I would think that Mr. Perigo would want to encourage this friendly debate.

-NEIL

[william.scherk]

WSS,

I bet SOLO traffic at least doubles when you or I post something concerning Mr. Valliant's attack on the Demented/Demonic Duo.

I would think that Mr. Perigo would want to encourage this friendly debate.

Yes, the PARC/Valliant threads do offer at least the simulacra of discussion -- meaning a couple or more positions in jostling discord. SOLO's main attractions lately seem to be a kind of plangent angry whining bitchiness on all kinds of subjects, with zero focus or editorial line beyond a general bitter distemper. "Objectivism hasn't swept the world! And it's because of the likes of you, William Nevin, soft-cock appeasing hypocrite."

I have no idea why Lindsay Perigo finds it necessary to bitch out people who are his supporters. If they don't do the pitchfork and boiling oil choreography to his prescription, they become cowards and traitors or are otherwise reviled. As a marketing tool, or a means of increasing participation, it seems unwise.

But, such is the challenge of maintaining and extending a vast Empire.

[kiaer.ts]

Lindsay and co. suggested that I not post further on SOLO until I had read PARC. I did manage to look at the cover, long enough to see that it was a photoshopped slander which changed the reality of NB and AR in two separate conversations to NB apparently standing above Rand but appearing to want to be elsewhere. I believe MSK posted my observation here. Actually, I managed to get to page four.

[Brant Gaede]

Ah, SOLO. I'm in a way really sorry for Linz. Name-calling means the name-called leave and don't come back. So SOLO skrinks. The name-called never forget. And I still don't understand the photo requirement except it got rid of a few. With Linz it is something of an ingrained or profound failing. There is an innocence--seemingly to me--about it, if I don't look too close, which is my preference.

--Brant

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I have no idea why Lindsay Perigo finds it necessary to bitch out people who are his supporters.

William,

I do. Perigo is a bad person who has chosen to be the way he is. He likes it.

Adopting Objectivism did not make him morally good. It did give him a rationalized moral sanction to be nasty.

People look, scratch their heads in wonder, and just don't accept the fact that he bullies and hates because he likes it.

As in Michael Caine's wonderful line in The Dark Knight (as Alfred), "Some men aren't looking for anything logical. They can't be bought, bullied, reasoned or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn."

Obviously the scale of that quote is way too grandiose for Perigo, who is no more than a bloated batrachian in a small mudhole croaking out his impotent rage, but the motivation is identical. Perigo is the way he is because he wants to be that way.

One day people of goodwill in the Objectivist world will see it—and accept that it is possible for a man to choose that crap on purpose—and stop wondering. Many already have.

Michael

[Robert Campbell]

I continue to be preoccupied with events closer to home. There has been some improvement at Clemson, but we ain't out of the woods yet...

Mr. Valliant's offer to Neil Parille, over at SOLOP, was remarkable. But it remains to be seen whether Jim Valliant can actually get Jeff Britting to grant his request to allow access to all of those interviews and oral histories in the Ayn Rand Archives.

Lindsay Perigo's recent treatment of Bill Nevin is, sadly, all too typical. I agree with Michael about the "bloated batrachian": he keeps bullying and sliming people because he gets a kick out of bullying and sliming.

Robert Campbell

[william.scherk]

Mr. Valliant's offer to Neil Parille, over at SOLOP, was remarkable. But it remains to be seen whether Jim Valliant can actually get Jeff Britting to grant his request to allow access to all of those interviews and oral histories in the Ayn Rand Archives.

I have my fingers crossed that Zeus will send down a thunderbolt, flinging open the bronze gates to the Caverns of Wisdom.

But information on the Archives' web site suggests that if such a consultation is to happen, it will take place later on, should Zeus or Valliant intervene successfully with the Cyclopeans.

Access

Our access policy statement is available for the researcher. At present, due to preservation tasks, physical access to the Archives is limited to the Ayn Rand Institute staff and affiliates. However, research inquiries from university-affiliated graduate students and scholars are encouraged and will be accommodated whenever possible. For information on its future opening date, please consult the News & Announcements section for updates.

The current focus of the Archives is a major preservation project that has been in development for several years: the Ayn Rand Papers Conversion Project.

_________________________

NOTE: Due to the conversion project, the Archives is currently unavailable to researchers. Completion of the project is expected before the end of 2008.

[Chris Grieb]

A quick look at the policy suggests the Archives are more open. Am I wrong.

[Alfonso Jones]

A quick look at the policy suggests the Archives are more open. Am I wrong.

From what I hear informally, yes. Let's see what others with hard data have to contribute as an answer.

Heard of any people who wouldn't be classified as "in the ARI crowd" who have obtained access to the Archives?

Bill P (Alfonso)

[Reidy]

One who comes to mind is Franklin Toker, an architectural historian and author of Fallingwater Rising, 2005. Diana Hsieh has cited several others. The policy at ARI is to exclude people only if they've somehow offended the inner circle. Donald Leslie Johnson, another architectural historian, who has made dubious and unflattering assertions about Rand, was refused admission.

[Robert Campbell]

Chris G and Peter R,

The actual stated policy for access to the Ayn Rand Archives is bland, seemingly non-exclusionary—and hypocritical.

Scholars who are not on the Peikovian radar screen are sometimes allowed access to the Archives. They can be from virtually any school of thought, so long as they have not criticized Ayn Rand in print.

It's the "enemies of Objectivism" who aren't allowed in. A disproportionate number of these are denizens of Rand-land who have taken issue with the Orthodoxy on one thing or another.

Robert Campbell

[Alfonso Jones]

Chris G and Peter R,

The actual stated policy for access to the Ayn Rand Archives is bland, seemingly non-exclusionary—and hypocritical.

Scholars who are not on the Peikovian radar screen are sometimes allowed access to the Archives. They can be from virtually any school of thought, so long as they have not criticized Ayn Rand in print.

It's the "enemies of Objectivism" who aren't allowed in. A disproportionate number of these are denizens of Rand-land who have taken issue with the Orthodoxy on one thing or another.

Robert Campbell

INteresting exercise for anyone who can contribute:Make a list of those who have obtained access.Make a list of those who report having tried and been denied.Try to see the pattern, and the extent of being "on the outs with the ARI" required to be denied access.Bill P (Alfonso)

[Brant Gaede]

The "Ayn Rand Archives" are obviously NOT that but the "Ayn Rand Gatekeeper Archives."

--Brant

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Today marks a full week since Valliant allegedly sent his request to ARI.

From the looks of it, I was right. ARI isn't taking PARC seriously anymore, at least not seriously enough to respond in a timely fashion to a PARC-related request from the author.

I do admit that Britting or someone else at ARI might have already responded and Valliant simply has not posted the response, or such person might still respond. But in the absence of information, I will entertain my bias.

Nobody takes PARC seriously anymore.

That's how it looks and that's how I'll say it until there is a public display otherwise.

Michael

[william.scherk]

Today marks a full week since Valliant allegedly sent his request to ARI.

From the looks of it, I was right. ARI isn't taking PARC seriously anymore, at least not seriously enough to respond in a timely fashion to a PARC-related request from the author.

I do admit that Britting or someone else at ARI might have already responded and Valliant simply has not posted the response, or such person might still respond.

The Emperor of SOLO has just reported from James Valliant. James has had a relapse of his illness, and hasn't heard back yet from the Archives on his request to Britting.