The (hardly phantom) editing menace

[Greybird]

Robert Mayhew, the ARIans' gloss-producing "editor" of so many Rand quotes noted in the current PARC thread, from everything I've seen, has long been obfuscating, if not outright mendacious.

I doubt he intends to be that way — it's the ARI culture at work, protecting and polishing the organization's focus, no matter what they do to implicitly denigrate her as a human being.

In any event, I was reminded, in checking my files to find my unasked-for quotation by Jeff Walker (which book I don't own myself), of another bit of apparent trickery Mayhew (or his sponsors) put forward in 2001. This was in the wake, and the week, of Nine Eleven, about Rand's Ford Hall Forum pronouncements as to innocents in a war.

Mayhew apparently did such memory-hole editing twice in the same day!

Version 1 of the following originally appeared at aynrand.org on 16 September 2001. It was taken down later that day, without announcement or acknowledgment. Version 2 replaced it, but apparently has now been itself removed from the Website, as well as from ARI's successor site for this topic, the "Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights."

My apparatus for making notations on the differences is within double "=" signs. A commentary on Version 1 that I made on the old Atlantis list, where I first noted this discrepancy, follows.

* * *

== ARI Website heading for V1: ==

Q & A with Ayn Rand on the Death of Innocents in War (Lightly Edited by Robert Mayhew)

== ARI Website heading for V2: ==

The following are edited excerpts from oral question-and-answer periods that followed two lectures by Ayn Rand. Neither Ayn Rand herself nor the Estate of Ayn Rand has approved the final versions.

Ford Hall Forum, 1972: "A Nation's Unity"

Q: What should be done about the killing of innocent people in war?

== <V1> and {V2}, [brackets] used in original ==

AR: This is a major reason people should be concerned about the nature of their government. Certainly, the majority in any country at war is innocent. But if by neglect, ignorance, or helplessness, they couldn't overthrow their bad government and establish a better one, then they must pay the price for the sins of their government — as we are all paying for the sins of ours.

<NEXT SENTENCE OMITTED IN V1> {[in this sense] there are no innocent people in war.} If some people put up with dictatorship — as some of them do in Soviet Russia, and some of them did in Nazi Germany — then they deserve what their government deserves.

<There are no innocent people in war.> {PREVIOUS SENTENCE OMITTED IN V2} Our only concern should be: who started that war? If you can establish that a given country did it, then there is no need to consider the rights of that country, because it has initiated the use of force, and therefore stepped outside the principle of right.

I've covered this in <Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal,> {The Virtue of Selfishness [in her essay "Collectivized 'Rights'"],} where I explain why nations as such do not have any rights, only individuals do.

Ford Hall Forum, 1976: "The Moral Factor"

Q: Assume a war of aggression was started by the Soviet Union; assume also that within the Soviet Union, there were individuals opposed to the Soviet system. How would you handle that?

== <V1> and {V2}, (parens) used in original ==

AR: <I'll> {I will try to} pretend I'm taking the question seriously, because this question is blatantly wrong. I cannot understand how anyone could entertain the question. My guess is that the problem is context-dropping.

The question assumes that an individual inside a country can <and should> {OMITTED} be made secure from the social system under which he lives and which he accepts, willingly or unwillingly (even if he is fighting it he still accepts it because he hasn't left the country), and that others should respect his rights — and collapse to aggression themselves. This is the position of the goddamned pacifists, who wouldn't fight, even when attacked, because they might kill innocent people.

If this were so, nobody would have to be concerned about his country's political system. <NEXT SENTENCE OMITTED IN V1> {If you could have a life independent of the system, which other nations respected, so that you wouldn't be drawn into an unjust war if you are an innocent victim — if that were so, we would not need to be concerned about politics.}

But we should care about having the right social system, because our lives are dependent on it — because a political system, good or bad, is established in our name, and we bear the responsibility for it.

<So if we fight a war, I hope the "innocent" are destroyed along with the guilty.> {So the Soviet citizens who are "innocent" — I hope someday will be destroyed in a proper war along with the guilty.} There aren't many innocent ones; those that exist are not in the big cities, but mainly in concentration camps.

But nobody should put up with aggression, and surrender his right of self-defense, for fear of hurting somebody else, guilty or innocent. When someone comes at you with a gun, if you have an ounce of self-esteem, you will answer him with force, never mind who he is or who stands behind him. If he's out to destroy you, you owe it to your own life to defend yourself.

* * *

[My commentary of 16 September 2001 on Atlantis, about Version 1 above, omitting some much more generalized invective about Rand — wherein I'm not sure I would agree with its vehemence now.]

"[...] Certainly, the majority in any country at war is innocent." (1972)

Therefore those living under a government ARE NOT necessarily morally responsible for what is done by the government apparatus.

"[...] If some people put up with dictatorship — as some of them do in Soviet Russia, and some of them did in Nazi Germany — then they deserve what their government deserves. There are no innocent people in war." (1972)

Therefore those living under a government ARE necessarily morally responsible for what is done by the government apparatus.

Which is it? What did she do to resolve this contradiction? Nothing. Instead, four years later, she made it worse.

"[...] The question [about Russia] assumes that an individual inside a country can and should be made secure from the social system under which he lives and which he accepts, willingly or unwillingly (even if he is fighting it he still accepts it because he hasn't left the country), and that others should respect his rights -- and collapse to aggression themselves." (1976)

This is a calumny on anyone who has resisted aggression or tyranny, throughout the history of humanity, including the American revolutionaries whom Rand praised elsewhere. They accepted what was put upon them? Six million Jews accepted being herded into the gas chambers, because they didn't manage to escape?

"[...] So if we fight a war, I hope the 'innocent' are destroyed along with the guilty." (1976)

The ten thousand* killed on Tuesday were only a down payment on fulfilling such a wish, because "There are no innocent people in war." (1972)

I haven't had many instances of those whom I admired, despite their all too human mistakes and limitations, crumbling before my mind's eye. This, to my immense sadness, and leading to my need for several stiff drinks at 4:00 am, is one of them.

Peikoff, Binswanger, Schwartz, and the Speichers learned their suspension of moral realities from their mentor. This is the key to the mystery, and I am no longer surprised. [...]

[*The death toll did initially appear that it might be this high, five days after the attacks.]

* * *

What I fear, especially in the light of only favored researchers (such as Valliant) getting access to Rand Estate archives, is this, most of all: How much context is being left out, by Mayhew and the others?

Rand's own more direct words — whatever they actually were, as the far-from-mere-copyediting changes above show — had their own severe difficulties, in terms of her own philosophy. Any omission of what she may have said to amplify or clarify them would be even worse.

Mayhew's own dredging of the Estate has continued apace, and I have to wonder by now about its value — including whether it has any more veracity than PARC.

Or, for that matter, any more dignity. I've almost never agreed with Scott Ryan, but I can certainly endorse the fear he expressed over on Amazon.com, in a review of one of these posthumous volumes: Someday, we're going to be subjected to Mayhew's edition of Ayn Rand's Laundry Lists. Just wait. *sigh*

Your own comments, or other examples, or more general discussion, in regard to such editing and Mayhew's (or anyone else's) role in it, would all be appropriate.

Edited June 29, 2008 by Greybird

[Greybird]

In preparing the post above, I miscopied some of my original Atlantis post (as to dates), removed what I thought was a redundant phrase (which was not), and inadvertently left out a paragraph of my conclusion. Those items that went awry at 5:16 am were repaired at 2:00 pm, which is when I'd do better to post these things {g}

[Mike11]

I'm sorry I have nothing to contribute except my thanks for uncovering and taking apart this material.

[Ellen Stuttle]

<NEXT SENTENCE OMITTED IN V1> {[in this sense] there are no innocent people in war.} If some people put up with dictatorship — as some of them do in Soviet Russia, and some of them did in Nazi Germany — then they deserve what their government deserves.

<There are no innocent people in war.> {PREVIOUS SENTENCE OMITTED IN V2} Our only concern should be: who started that war? If you can establish that a given country did it, then there is no need to consider the rights of that country, because it has initiated the use of force, and therefore stepped outside the principle of right.

Steve,

I'm not clear on what's being indicated about "There are no innocent people in war."

If I understand your editing indicators, the difference re that statement between V1 and V2 is that Mayhew added the material in brackets ("In this sense") in V2. Is this a correct reading of what happened?

Ellen

PS: About Mayhew's editing: I think there's a fair amount of comment/complaint about that scattered around this sprawling site. You might want to search on "Mayhew" for prior gripes. There's also other stuff on airbrushing of material.

___

[Greybird]

If I understand your editing indicators, the difference re that statement between V1 and V2 is that Mayhew added the material in brackets ("In this sense") in V2. Is this a correct reading of what happened?

Yes, he made that addition, but he also moved "There are no innocent people in war" to the previous paragraph. He thus decoupled it from where Rand originally said it, preceding and reinforcing her statement about "Our only concern should be: who started that war?"

He may have thought that this clarified what Rand wished to emphasize. I would contend that it borders on changing what Rand wished to emphasize. Even when speaking extempore, she was not at all careless about where and how she placed her emphases.

About Mayhew's editing: I think there's a fair amount of comment/complaint about that scattered around this sprawling site. You might want to search on "Mayhew" for prior gripes. There's also other stuff on airbrushing of material.

I don't doubt any of that. I've run into a great deal of it already. I wasn't suggesting that others hadn't commented, if that's what you're implying here.

I haven't, though, found this instance mentioned anywhere outside of the 2001 discussion on the Atlantis list. I'd also say that any emendations to and Branden-disappearances from, say, the transcribed Art of Fiction seminars are of notably less importance, to the non-Objectivist world, than these animadversions on war.

Mayhew's work here is especially notable for being, as I said, a double plunge into the memory hole on the same day, 16 September 2001. It signifies how desperate the ARI leadership was, that weekend after the attacks, to use Rand to backstop the bloodthirsty rhetoric that Peikoff and other ARIans were already pushing on the mass media. (It hasn't changed, in form, from that time to this week's Peikovian salivating on Fox News about nuking Tehran.)

Something from Rand herself had to be cobbled up — and cooked to fit, as Mayhew did, even adding entire sentences — under extreme time pressure. Or else how could Peikoff be said, on that weekend of furious agitprop from all sides, to be "advancing Objectivism," as ARI constantly proclaims?

They seem to at least have been abashed enough to remove these mixed, blended, and probably context-ripped Rand quotes from their Websites, as I couldn't find them there four years ago, and again couldn't find them this weekend.

Edited June 29, 2008 by Greybird