Barbara Branden's 50th anniversary tribute to "Atlas"

[Chris Grieb]

Michael; Thanks for the quote from Fact and Value.

As an Objectivist for over forty years I don't think highly of Leonard Peikoff. You might look at OL blog entry on the Ayn Rand Bookstore. I think any wise and honest reader of Ayn Rand is Ayn Rand's intellectual heir.

I think you might even disagree with her and be her intellectual heir.

[Alfonso Jones]

I am surprised that nobody remembered this: Fact and Value by Leonard Peikoff. From the essay (my emphasis):

Now I wish to make a request to any unadmitted anti-Objectivists reading this piece, a request that I make as Ayn Rand's intellectual and legal heir.

Michael

Michael, Michael . . . .

The important question is . . . did RAND name him as her intellectual heir?

Alfonso

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Alfonso,

I was merely providing the quote because people were asking where Peikoff claimed that he was Rand's intellectual heir in his own words. That's one place I know about. That doesn't mean I agree (in the spirit of him being chief guru of some kind of formalized movement).

Incidentally, being an heir does not necessarily make one competent. How many sons and daughters of millionaires squander their birthrights after they inherit them?

I agree with Chris. Wise and honest readers of Rand are her true intellectual heirs. She left an enormous intellectual legacy for all who want it by being competent enough to make her ideas become best-selling books.

Michael

[Mike Hardy]

I have a similar thought. Rand was a novelist such as I could never be, but her logic was tatty and frayed. My formulation has the virtue of being rigorously founded and is consistent with sound science. That is because I put facts before philosophy. Also I am a mathematician by training and I know how to put together a tight proof. Rand did not have this background. Also I never took the road to moralism, either. Morality is opinion. There are no moral facts. There are no laws of physical reality that imply, determine or specify morality. Not one. Nature does not care if we are good or bad.

As for art, Heinlein was a better story teller. Not that -Atlas Shrugged- is bad but Heinlein stories -rock-. Ursula Le Guin is also a better story teller. Here best political ouvre is -The Dispossessed- which did for anarchism, what Rand did for capitalism. Ayn Rand stories are a showcase for her monologues (some of which were quite good). I think of Ayn Rand as having Victor Hugo envy.

Heinlein wandered all over the philosophical map without much attention

to philosophical inconsistencies; he didn't care about that. His novels for

an adult audience were generally not very good. I found _The_Moon_is_a_

_Harsh_Mistress_ exciting when I read it at the age of 13, but the implausibilities

of it now strike me as comical. Farmers on the moon exporting food to an

overpopulated earth? Fearing that they will run out of natural resources

in seven years? How did those resources get there, and why could not

more be brought the same way? Zillions of other problems too......

ON THE OTHER HAND: Heinlein's stories for you people (aged 10 - 16 or so,

maybe?) are sometimes (not always) absolutely brilliant and can be

enormously enjoyed by adults, especially adults with unusually high IQs.

_Starman_Jones_ is flawed and its flaws just don't matter. It's great

(see the review I posted over at amazon.com). _Have_Space_Suit:_

_Will Travel_ is brilliant. Anyone who doesn't love it should be euthanized.

In fact, L.N. Subtle, if you're reading this: read the latter book first. -- Mike Hardy

[Mike Hardy]

I am surprised that nobody remembered this: Fact and Value by Leonard Peikoff. From the essay (my emphasis):

Now I wish to make a request to any unadmitted anti-Objectivists reading this piece, a request that I make as Ayn Rand's intellectual and legal heir.

Michael

Michael, Michael . . . .

The important question is . . . did RAND name him as her intellectual heir?

Alfonso

No.

She called Nathaniel Branden that once. Then he betrayed her. Would she risk

making the same mistake twice?

I think Peikoff makes a mistake trying to assume that title, unless he makes it

clear that others may also be her intellectual heirs, without being named such

by her. People think he's trying to say she declared him her successor, to lead

the movement after her death. That can only make him look silly. -- Mike Hardy

[Barbara Branden]

To return to the topic....

Steve and Phil, I'm beginning to feel as if we are discussing a non-supernatural equivalent of how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. I don't get the infinite complexities of human nature and motivatioms being called upon in support of your positions. What is debatable, complex, or confusing about my statements that:

1. Out of the many thousands of achievers who responded positively to Atlas Shrugged, it is a sad fact, and terribly painful to a beleaguered Ayn Rand, that none of them spoke out publicly to defend it;

2. Some of those who did not speak out had justifiable reasons for their silence, others had only partly jutifiiable reasons, many were silent out of weakness and cowardice.

I'm losing track of what we're arguing about.

.

Barbara

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

The important question is . . . did RAND name him as her intellectual heir?

No.

She called Nathaniel Branden that once. Then he betrayed her. Would she risk

making the same mistake twice?

I think Peikoff makes a mistake trying to assume that title, unless he makes it

clear that others may also be her intellectual heirs, without being named such

by her. People think he's trying to say she declared him her successor, to lead

the movement after her death. That can only make him look silly. -- Mike Hardy

Mike,

Actually there are a couple of points here that have developed over the years and I want to take advantage of your comment to clarify them. You said about Peikoff, "People think he's trying to say she declared him her successor, to lead

the movement after her death." Here is the immediate continuation of the "Fact and Value" quote (my emphasis):

If you reject the concept of "objectivity" and the necessity of moral judgment, if you sunder fact and value, mind and body, concepts and percepts, if you agree with the Branden or Kelley viewpoint or anything resembling it—please drop out of our movement: drop Ayn Rand, leave Objectivism alone. We do not want you and Ayn Rand would not have wanted you—just as you, in fact, do not want us or her.

I don't see how this could be interpreted as anything other than Peikoff speaking as if he presumed he was Rand's successor as leader of a formal movement, especially since he prefaced this by qualifying himself as "Ayn Rand's intellectual and legal heir."

There is another issue. Everybody keeps saying she designated Nathaniel Branden as her intellectual heir as if she had only designated one (like a successor). That is not what I understood from the Mike Wallace interview, where she announced this to the four corners of the broadcast universe and it was recorded for all time (and sold by ARI). This was aired February 25, 1959. The way she spoke, she sounded like she was grooming a whole bunch of intellectual heirs. Here is a transcript of the pertinent part of the interview that I made from the video.

MIKE WALLACE: Ayn. One last question. We only have about half a minute. How many Randists?... I beg your pardon. You don't like the word.

AYN RAND: Objectivists.

MIKE WALLACE: How many Objectivists would you say are in the United States?

AYN RAND: It's hard to estimate, but I can tell you some figures. My best intellectual heir, Nathaniel Branden, the young psychologist, is giving a series of lectures on my philosophy in New York. He has received 600 letters of inquiry within the month of January. He is giving these lectures and attendance is growing in geometrical proportion.

I understand "BEST INTELLECTUAL HEIR" to mean that there are other lesser intellectual heirs.

How's that for a bone to chew on for ARI?

That would mean that Barbara Branden and Alan Greenspan among others in the Collective (or at NBI) ALSO were Rand's intellectual heirs at that time (as insinuated from her own words above)—including Leonard Peikoff, for that matter. According to this sense, since Rand never repudiated Greenspan and remained close to him until the end of her life, he has just as much right to consider himself as Rand's intellectual heir as Peikoff does.

Michael

[Barbara Branden]

Michael: "I understand "BEST INTELLECTUAL HEIR" to mean that there are other lesser intellectual heirs."

Rand mis-spoke here, as it is easy to do when one is speaking extemporaneously. She did not intend anyone other than Nathaniel to be her intellectual heir -- that is, to be entitled to speak for her. And after her break with him, she said specifically that she would never again give that title to anyone -- which is why I know it was not a title she gave to Peikoff.

And even had she ever again given it, she would not have intended it as a sanction to head "the movement." Rand did not want there to be a movement. She made it clear that she wanted no formal organization to speak in her name, and most definitely not to use her name. It's thus a tad difficult to jusfify an organization called "The Ayn Rand Institute" as being authorized to speak for her and as being headed by her intellectual heir.

Barbara

[Philip Coates]

> I'm losing track of what we're arguing about. [barbara]

Me too. That's why I stopped. :-)

[Barbara Branden]

> I'm losing track of what we're arguing about. [barbara]

Me too. That's why I stopped. :-)

It's the best reason I can think of, Phil.

Barbara

[Alfonso Jones]

The important question is . . . did RAND name him as her intellectual heir?

No.

She called Nathaniel Branden that once. Then he betrayed her. Would she risk

making the same mistake twice?

I think Peikoff makes a mistake trying to assume that title, unless he makes it

clear that others may also be her intellectual heirs, without being named such

by her. People think he's trying to say she declared him her successor, to lead

the movement after her death. That can only make him look silly. -- Mike Hardy

Mike,

Actually there are a couple of points here that have developed over the years and I want to take advantage of your comment to clarify them. You said about Peikoff, "People think he's trying to say she declared him her successor, to lead

the movement after her death." Here is the immediate continuation of the "Fact and Value" quote (my emphasis):

If you reject the concept of "objectivity" and the necessity of moral judgment, if you sunder fact and value, mind and body, concepts and percepts, if you agree with the Branden or Kelley viewpoint or anything resembling it—please drop out of our movement: drop Ayn Rand, leave Objectivism alone. We do not want you and Ayn Rand would not have wanted you—just as you, in fact, do not want us or her.

I don't see how this could be interpreted as anything other than Peikoff speaking as if he presumed he was Rand's successor as leader of a formal movement, especially since he prefaced this by qualifying himself as "Ayn Rand's intellectual and legal heir."

There is another issue. Everybody keeps saying she designated Nathaniel Branden as her intellectual heir as if she had only designated one (like a successor). That is not what I understood from the Mike Wallace interview, where she announced this to the four corners of the broadcast universe and it was recorded for all time (and sold by ARI). This was aired February 25, 1959. The way she spoke, she sounded like she was grooming a whole bunch of intellectual heirs. Here is a transcript of the pertinent part of the interview that I made from the video.

MIKE WALLACE: Ayn. One last question. We only have about half a minute. How many Randists?... I beg your pardon. You don't like the word.

AYN RAND: Objectivists.

MIKE WALLACE: How many Objectivists would you say are in the United States?

AYN RAND: It's hard to estimate, but I can tell you some figures. My best intellectual heir, Nathaniel Branden, the young psychologist, is giving a series of lectures on my philosophy in New York. He has received 600 letters of inquiry within the month of January. He is giving these lectures and attendance is growing in geometrical proportion.

I understand "BEST INTELLECTUAL HEIR" to mean that there are other lesser intellectual heirs.

How's that for a bone to chew on for ARI?

That would mean that Barbara Branden and Alan Greenspan among others in the Collective (or at NBI) ALSO were Rand's intellectual heirs at that time (as insinuated from her own words above)—including Leonard Peikoff, for that matter. According to this sense, since Rand never repudiated Greenspan and remained close to him until the end of her life, he has just as much right to consider himself as Rand's intellectual heir as Peikoff does.

Michael

Michael:

1) I suspect the "best intellectual heir" is misspeaking. I say this given what she clearly said elsewhere. I could imagine her starting out to say something (recall that this was not a speech, but Q&A with Mike Wallace) like "my best expositor" or the like, and winding up with "intellectual heir." Is this credible - Well, I think so, given what she clearly said elsewhere. Can anyone think of a time when ANYBODY got elevated to NB's level by Rand (other than Rand herself, of course...) prior to the break-up?

2) Did Rand regard others - Barbara Branden, Alan Greenspan, Leonard Peikoff, etc. as people of whom she was INTENSELY, FIERCELY PROUD? Obviously so.

All this being said, what I think is worthy of careful note is that NOBODY HAS BEEN ABLE TO PRODUCE A RECORD OF RAND EXPLICITLY NAMING PEIKOFF AS HER INTELLECTUAL HEIR. And this is with Peikoff having control of the papers/estate. I regard this silence as a thunderingly clear statement. Rand named Peikoff as her financial heir, keeper of her papers, etc... But no "intellectual heir" designation. That is self-assumed, by Peikoff. (If he objected, it clearly would not appear on a book cover.)

Alfonso

[Ellen Stuttle]

Michael:

1) I suspect the "best intellectual heir" is misspeaking. I say this given what she clearly said elsewhere. I could imagine her starting out to say something (recall that this was not a speech, but Q&A with Mike Wallace) like "my best expositor" or the like, and winding up with "intellectual heir." Is this credible - Well, I think so, given what she clearly said elsewhere. Can anyone think of a time when ANYBODY got elevated to NB's level by Rand (other than Rand herself, of course...) prior to the break-up?

I agree. I think there's either a slur in the tape, with a couple words missing (i.e., what she said might have been "best student and intellectual heir"), or, as Alfonso suggested, she started to say "best expositor" or "best student" and changed in mid-speech to "intellectual heir."

Ellen

___

[Alfonso Jones]

Michael: "I understand "BEST INTELLECTUAL HEIR" to mean that there are other lesser intellectual heirs."

Rand mis-spoke here, as it is easy to do when one is speaking extemporaneously. She did not intend anyone other than Nathaniel to be her intellectual heir -- that is, to be entitled to speak for her. And after her break with him, she said specifically that she would never again give that title to anyone -- which is why I know it was not a title she gave to Peikoff.

And even had she ever again given it, she would not have intended it as a sanction to head "the movement." Rand did not want there to be a movement. She made it clear that she wanted no formal organization to speak in her name, and most definitely not to use her name. It's thus a tad difficult to jusfify an organization called "The Ayn Rand Institute" as being authorized to speak for her and as being headed by her intellectual heir.

Barbara

Thanks for your clear statement in the second paragraph about Rand saying specifically she would never again give the title of "intellectual heir" to anyone.

As for the notion of an organization named for Rand, with this habit of attempting to speak "officially" and with slavish orthodoxy --- this goes way beyond the worst practices of NBI... Sort of ironic, no?

Alfonso

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Well, whether Rand mis-spoke or not, "BEST INTELLECTUAL HEIR" is what she spoke. It's on the tape, clear as a bell, fully intentional (not "slipped"), tape fully intact, and in all its glory for any and all to verify.

Forgive me, but I find the whole issue silly and playing at life, not really living in the factual world. Look at the mess ARI has made with historical records trying to keep up some kind of posture about this. Because that's all it is. A silly posture.

btw - Is there any other place where Rand is on record saying or writing the intellectual heir stuff? The Mike Wallace interview is the only place I know of. (I bet there are some interesting things in the archives.)

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

Leonard Peikoff's intellectual stature did not increase when Nathanieil Branden left. He only occupied more space in a smaller room.

--Brant

[Philip Coates]

> I think there's either a slur in the tape, with a couple words missing (i.e., what she said might have been "best student and intellectual heir"), or, as Alfonso suggested, she started to say "best expositor" or "best student" and changed in mid-speech to "intellectual heir."

Who gives a flying fuck?

[Barbara Branden]

Phil, Michael, the issue has some importance because Peikoff and others have used the alleged "intellectual heir" title to add credence to his attempts to present himself publicly as the sole authority on Objectivism and on Rand.

Barbara

[Alfonso Jones]

Phil, Michael, the issue has some importance because Peikoff and others have used the alleged "intellectual heir" title to add credence to his attempts to present himself publicly as the sole authority on Objectivism and on Rand.

Barbara

Phil, Michael, Barbara -

From my perspective, there is some real importance in carefully documenting the airbrushing/rewriting of history going on. There will be a generation when those of us alive during Ayn Rand's lifetime will no longer be around to rebut. I don't want them to be left with the sort of rewritten history that Peikoff and the ARI are serving up. Or only with rewritten versions of Rand's publications. The magazines - Objectivist Newsletter and The Objectivist, for example - need to be restored, and the books restored, to their earlier state, as Rand approved them.

It's about integrity. I look, for example, at Nathaniel Branden's "My Years With Ayn Rand" (which I consider much superior to the earlier Judgment Day in tone, attitude, reflection, . . .) and I see that he did not cut himself much slack in that memoir. Those in the ARI camp would do well to follow NB's example.

LP, in my view, exhibits considerable arrogance in altering Rand's writings, often without so much as a footnote explaining the alteration and preserving the original version. Clearly, his behavior shows that he believes his judgment to be superior to Rand's. (I have never seen him claim in writing, or heard of him claim, that Rand directed the airbrushing to happen after her death.)

Alfonso

[Chris Grieb]

Alfonso;

Good post!

The bound volumes of the Ayn Rand magazines are as they were published. The problem is with the CD which has only the articles by Rand and Peikoff.

A different problem is the elimination of Nathaniel and Barbara for the historical record of Objectivism.

Phil;

No one should get to rewrite history!

[Alfonso Jones]

Alfonso;

Good post!

The bound volumes of the Ayn Rand magazines are as they were published. The problem is with the CD which has only the articles by Rand and Peikoff.

A different problem is the elimination of Nathaniel and Barbara for the historical record of Objectivism.

Phil;

No one should get to rewrite history!

Chris -

Thanks. I have the bound volumes and the CD-ROM. I resent the absence of the Brandens' material from the CD-ROm. And the process of elimination of references to them and some others from being referenced in some of the article collections...

Alfonso

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Barbara,

One of my points was that the whole "sole authority" issue is predicated on the premise that there can only be ONE intellectual heir and that this was Rand's explicit intention. When a person uses a phrase like "best intellectual heir," that is in the plural. It is fairly reasonable to conclude from those words that one possible intention of Rand at that time was not to groom an all powerful leader to follow her, but simply to educate a group of younger people (giving obvious preference to Nathaniel).

The group did exist and if that meaning is maintained, even David Kelley and the younger ones who followed the Collective would be her intellectual heirs.

I think the reason she decided it was a mistake to use this term was because of the intense politicking that it prompts. I can't think of any issue that brings out the cult in Objectivism like scrambling for "intellectual heir" does.

Michael

[Barbara Branden]

Barbara,

One of my points was that the whole "sole authority" issue is predicated on the premise that there can only be ONE intellectual heir and that this was Rand's explicit intention. When a person uses a phrase like "best intellectual heir," that is in the plural. It is fairly reasonable to conclude from those words that one possible intention of Rand at that time was not to groom an all powerful leader to follow her, but simply to educate a group of younger people (giving obvious preference to Nathaniel).

The group did exist and if that meaning is maintained, even David Kelley and the younger ones who followed the Collective would be her intellectual heirs.

I think the reason she decided it was a mistake to use this term was because of the intense politicking that it prompts. I can't think of any issue that brings out the cult in Objectivism like scrambling for "intellectual heir" does.

Michael

Michael, something can be a reasonable assumption, but false. I know for a fact that Rand had no intention of appointing any but a single intellectual heir, and that heir was Nathaniel. And their affair was a crucial element in her use of the term; she viewed the man she loved and admired as the appropriate one to carry on her work; and so she dedicated Atlas to him and not to the Collective. She would never have dreamed of using the term to refer to "a group of younger people" -- or to any group; she would have been well aware, among many other reasons, that differences of interpretation and understanding could arise among them. And she was convinced at the time that no differences would arise between Nathaniel and her. So one cannot "maintain a meaning" when that was never her meaning.

Barbara

Barbara

[Chris Grieb]

Barbara; Are you saying that Ayn Rand said to more than one person that she would not have an intellectual heir after the break with Nathaniel. Did she say this in the late 70th and early 80ths.

[Barbara Branden]

Barbara; Are you saying that Ayn Rand said to more than one person that she would not have an intellectual heir after the break with Nathaniel. Did she say this in the late 70th and early 80ths.

Chris, I haven't inquired about who she might have said this to or when, but she said it to me more than once and, since she discussed Nathaniel at great length with the Collective for some years after the break, I'm sure she would have said it to them. She was horrified, in retrospect, that she had given Nathaniel what she had called "a blank check to speak in her name," and vowed never to make that mistake again.

Barbara

[Chris Grieb]

Barbara; Thanks! Your statements about her giving Nathaniel a blank check suggest to me that she would not have given Peikoff one. His taking one does not speak well of him.