Peikoff: The Great Pretender

[9thdoctor]

This is all so obvious that I'm almost embarrassed to have wasted a post on it.

I think Phil’s post is a good thing for newbies to read in the context of this thread. There’s convincing evidence that this material is not obvious to many in Rand-land. OTOH, no one who has posted to this thread got anything new from it; in fiction this would be called a plot dump or an idiot lecture. Meanwhile the people who need to read it are warned away because of the "inherently dishonest" and "odious" posters among us. Damn sheep.

Do you think the tiny number of 'frequently flyers' who post all the time are the only readers?

Michael claims this site has wide readership. Do you disagree?

I was praising your post. I hope more people read than contribute. You noted that the material was “obvious”, I agree. Yet some visitors need to read it. Note the Wikipedia link, calling your post a "plot dump or an idiot lecture" may seem like backhanded praise, but I didn't invent the terms.

[Brant Gaede]

Ellen, it was in the form of a formal announcement, I think. I'm sticking to the beginning of the lecture.

--Brant

Edited July 9, 2010 by Brant Gaede

[Philip Coates]

> I was praising your post. I hope more people read than contribute. You noted that the material was “obvious”, I agree. Yet some visitors need to read it. [ND]

I misunderstood. (I thought you were saying I was giving an idiotic lecture, etc.) Thanks for clarifying!

[Ellen Stuttle]

Also, though I don't have any independent verification on this score, I've heard tell that Edith was either the or a prime instigator in complaining about David Kelley's talking to libertarians, with the eventual result of the Peikoff/Kelley split.

Although I have no trouble with the view that Peter Schwartz and Harry Binswanger were buffaloing Leonard Peikoff during the run-up to his split with George Reisman and Edith Packer, this other item is one of a great many Stuttlian tales that I recommend receiving with skepticism.

Given David Kelley's refusal to fall in line with condemning Barbara's book unread, and Schwartz's published "review" of said book, why would Schwartz have needed Edith Packer or anybody else to encourage him to denounce Kelley?

Besides, The Objectivist Forum kept going long enough to be able to publish a review of The Evidence of the Senses—and never ran one. A reasonable interpretation would be that by 1987 Binswanger was also on Kelley's case.

Robert Campbell

Robert,

I think that you have the view -- am I wrong? -- that David's reading Barbara's biography was the *real* reason for the ARI folk denouncing David.

Troubles between David and the persons who became the ARI heads went back further. You might ask David if you don't believe this.

Also, Peter Schwartz was reputed to be virulent on "libertarianism" well before the denouncing of David. Whether he truly was or not, I couldn't say. I don't think I ever met Peter Schwartz.

The reports to which I referred were comments by persons high in the IOS ranking who chortled over Edith's getting "a taste of her own medicine." Whether or not what they said was accurate, I don't know. However, I do know that I heard several such comments by several different persons. Again, you might want to ask David for his memories on the history.

Ellen

[Philip Coates]

> Edith's getting "a taste of her own medicine."

What on earth would that mean? She never excommunicated anyone.

[Greybird]

I once inquired about offering a Peikoff course on tape: his 1976 lectures on The Philosophy of Objectivism.

The year was probably 1978 [...]

That go-round was indeed in 1978, which is when I took it in Chicago. Jerry Biggers also attended those sessions.

I was told, however, that anyone who took the course had to certify that he or she was not a member of the Libertarian Party or some other libertarian organization.

Steve Dupré, the attorney who hosted the Chicago course sessions at his office, told me it was the Society for Individual Liberty, then the only notably active, avowedly libertarian college-campus organization.

SIL was founded by Don Ernsberger and Jarret Wollstein, the latter of whom Rand had herself condemned (though not by name) in The Objectivist. He'd been audacious enough, post-Break, to propose offering a campus lecture series on Objectivism. Rand's mouthpiece Henry Holzer dropped legal bricks on him. Apparently that ostracism still was maintained by Peikoff nearly a decade later.

(SIL later merged with Vince Miller's Libertarian International, to form the still-thriving International Society for Individual Liberty.)

Written statements did not have to be collected; rather, it was up to the person who rented the tapes and presented them to vouch for the allegiances of those present.

Dupré didn't bother any of us with that merde. He neither asked those of us present about this nor cared, and I recall no such statement being part of the written attendee agreement — which names and addresses, I was told, went back to Barbara Weiss in New York.

Dupré did adhere scrupulously to other nitpicking rules from Peikoff, though, such as the one not allowing any portion of the tapes to be re-played to attendees. All note-taking difficulties — usually with Rand's accent — be damned. (Making up a session one had missed was allowed, and I doubled up one Sunday, coming early to the Loop to catch what I'd missed the previous weekend.)

I was not a member of SIL or the Libertarian Party then, though I joined both the following year. Any lingering spell from Organized Objectivism had worn off long before the Peikoff taped course was over, as testified by many negative assessments from the lot of us over beer and Giordano's deep-dish pizza.

[Robert Campbell]

I think that you have the view -- am I wrong? -- that David's reading Barbara's biography was the *real* reason for the ARI folk denouncing David.

I won't pull a Clinton, and inquire as to the real meaning of "real" here

Was his reading Barbara's book (and encouraging others to read it) the only reason persons up in the hierarchy of the Ayn Rand Institute wanted rid of David Kelley?

Presumably not.

Was The Passion of Ayn Rand the casus belli?

Combine Peter Schwartz's 1986 "review" of the book with Leonard Peikoff's 1986 notice (announcing he would never read it) and 1987 Ford Hall Forum talk and Q&A, fold in Harry Binswanger's reported views, then consider that Laissez-Faire Books sold Passion (including autographed copies) and, yeah, I'd say so.

Also, Peter Schwartz was reputed to be virulent on "libertarianism" well before the denouncing of David. Whether he truly was or not, I couldn't say. I don't think I ever met Peter Schwartz.

Stuttlianism at its finest—if she can't report it personally, there might not be anything to it.

We may take it that Peter Schwartz was, umm, virulent on the subject, because he published the original, uncut version of "Libertarianism: The Perversion of Liberty" in 1986.

It should be kept in mind, however, that, despite Ayn Rand's own virulence on the subject of libertarianism, Leonard Peikoff did book-signings of The Ominous Parallels at Laissez-Faire Books.

Robert Campbell

PS. It's amusing to find Peter Schwartz's 1989 condemnation of libertarianism as an "evil doctrine" still up on the Ayn Rand Institute website:

http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=objectivism_sanctions

It includes such gems as

Thus, the “benefits” of speaking to Libertarian groups are as nonexistent as the “benefits” of exhibiting books at an Iranian fair.

Now that Yaron Brook has spoken under the auspices of a libertarian organization in England, will Schwartz's screed be stamped "Null and Void"?

[Rich Engle]

Damn, Bob C.; I was waiting for that one.

As usual, the cleaner-up-voice-of-reason.

Anytime you want to come to FL, consider it bed and breakfast; I have that for you.

rde

Bob Has The Killer Timing.

[Greybird]

Also, Peter Schwartz was reputed to be virulent on "libertarianism" well before the denouncing of David. Whether he truly was or not, I couldn't say. I don't think I ever met Peter Schwartz.

Stuttlianism at its finest — if she can't report it personally, there might not be anything to it.

What part of "I couldn't say" do you not understand? She said precisely that: SHE couldn't say. She was reporting others' personal "repute" of him that she could not confirm. That takes no stand whatsoever on whether or not anybody else could confirm that there's "anything to it."

Not everyone keeps the precise O-schism chronologies in their heads at all times for ready reference. I was infuriated by Schwartz's original screed as well, but had forgotten that it came out in 1986. And Ellen seemed to me, here, to be alluding to up-close vitriol strewn by Schwartz in the presence of others, rather than in print.

You're just indulging here in a personal slam for the sake of a personal slam, and you — unlike others here — have almost always risen above this.

Edited July 10, 2010 by Greybird

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Steve,

Are you engaging in a personal slam?

You don't seem to mind when you do it, but you don't seem to like it much when others do it.

Just wondering about the double standard...

(If you wanna preach bullshit, at least walk your own talk.)

Michael

[Philip Coates]

Subject: Assuming Ignoble Motives and Constantly Attacking People

> Stuttlianism at its finest — if she can't report it personally, there might not be anything to it. [RC]

> You're just indulging here in a personal slam for the sake of a personal slam, and you — unlike others here — have almost always risen above this. [GB]

I have to agree with Greybird that repeated personal digs or snide remarks are inappropriate (if that is his general principle, pretty strictly adhered to). They lower the level of discourse.

(Even worse: Robert - and the tendency of many who post most frequently on this list - is to do this with people like Dr. P and L. Perigo and D. Hsieh or R. Mayhew -- questioning their motives or character, not just their judgment or ideas. An example of this would be Robert's mind-reading taht everything DH does, she does to advance her career, not out of conviction. How does he know her motives?)

Just stick to the facts. You can criticize a particular statement or action or approach of someone, if you are right and it's important. For example you can question someone's thinking style or 'rationalism'. That doesn't require mind-reading about motives or honesty.

But don't come up with an 'ism' for someone you don't like. Or do it in repeated posts whenever that person opens her mouth.

Edited July 10, 2010 by Philip Coates

[Philip Coates]

> Are you engaging in a personal slam?

Michael, it's not a personal slam to criticize someone for a personal slam.

[jriggenbach]

Subject: Assuming Ignoble Motives and Constantly Attacking People

I know E. B. White would never engage in such behavior.

JR

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

> Are you engaging in a personal slam?

Michael, it's not a personal slam to criticize someone for a personal slam.

Phil,

You claim to have studied Objectivism.

That being so, you know that--according to the Objectivist theory of concepts--there is no such thing as contextless knowledge.

Yet here you are, issuing a decree based on some kind of knowledge you imply to possess to be applied regardless of context.

I sense a very serious breach of consistency. And it's on an epistemological level.

Either you agree with the Objectivist theory of knowledge (and use it) or you merely give lip service to it and practice something else. I see what you say and I see what you do.

Sorry to say, but they do not line up in your post here.

Now, to answer your observation. It certainly can be "a personal slam to criticize someone for a personal slam." It depends on the context and your intent.

If, for instance, you support the Stuttlian form of vanity and resulting vicious backstage manipulations, and you constantly oppose those who bring it out into the open, while constantly insinuating that you are likewise superior to the common breed (i.e., in a Stuttlian manner, albeit with deep heart-felt sighs for a touch of style), I believe you are pushing an agenda and "slamming" the person you are criticizing. You certainly are making it clear that you are far, far, far, far above such low-bred behavior and nonsense that you are "slamming"...

But then, that's a context. Judging from your posts, I'm not too sure you are interested in using context as a standard in your handling of knowledge...

Michael

[Philip Coates]

> It certainly can be "a personal slam to criticize someone for a personal slam."

Can be, but doesn't have to be.

If someone makes a mistake in focusing on attacking a person rather than discussing ideas, to point that out is not to make the same mistake.

Edited July 10, 2010 by Philip Coates

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

If someone makes a mistake in focusing on attacking a person rather than discussing ideas, to point that out is not to make the same mistake.

Phil,

Here's another context for ya'.

How about if it's not a mistake and is actually part of the point?

Michael

[Robert Campbell]

What part of "I couldn't say" do you not understand? She said precisely that: SHE couldn't say. She was reporting others' personal "repute" of him that she could not confirm. That takes no stand whatsoever on whether or not anybody else could confirm that there's "anything to it."

Steve,

Ms. Stuttle's preening and vaporing about what Peter Schwartz was reputed to say behind the scenes is completely irrelevant.

As is her apparent inability to remember whether she ever met Mr. Schwartz.

None of it amounts to a hill of beans, because she's overlooked the single thing that Peter Schwartz is best known for.

Schwartz published "Perversion of Liberty."

From that article, one may reliably conclude, without ever being privy to the slimmest tranche of his behind-the-scenes conversation, that Peter Schwartz was, well, virulently opposed to libertarianism.

As for undue precision in schism-calendaring, gimme a break. I remembered "Perversion's" date as 1986, but to be sure I Googled the title. The original, unabridged "Perversion" isn't online, but several replies to it are. It occasioned a great deal of public comment during the year after its initial publication.

Had Ms. Stuttle's objectives extended beyond preening and vaporing, she might have Googled Peter Schwartz and libertarianism herself.

Robert Campbell

[Ellen Stuttle]

Re supposed signed statements as requirements for taking courses, Peter Reidy writes:

The same signed-statements story got abroad about NBI several years earlier. Its origin seems to be the brochure statement that the lectures were addressed to the already-converted and were "not given to convert antagonists." Either Burns or Heller wrote about this.

I haven't found whatever you're referring to in the Burns or Heller.

However, both give incorrect reports about signed no-dealings-with-the-Brandens declarations being required for post-Rand/Brandens-split courses.

Here's what I've found in Goddess of the Market

The quotes are from Goddess of the Market,

Jennifer Burns,

Oxford University Press, 2009

A list of errata or possible errata follows.

The underscore is mine.

pg. 249

Now [in the immediate post-Rand/Brandens split years], bolstered by a new appointment as a philosophy professor at the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn, [Leonard Peikoff] emerged as Nathan's successor. Excerpts from his manuscript in progress, The Ominous Parallels, a comparison of Nazi Germany and contemporary America, filled the pages Nathan had claimed in The Objectivist, and he began to offer private courses in Objectivism. He and Rand were wary of recreating NBI, so his courses were not offered by tape transcription, only in person. Students had to sign a consent agreement stating that they would not associate with Nathan or Barbara Branden.

pg. 252

To some degree, Rand was proud of her role as an intellectual counterpoint to the New Left. In the first Objectivist published after her break with Nathan she praised a group at Brooklyn College, the Committee against Student Terrorism, for protesting a leftist rebellion with a leaflet that "condemned the violence, named the philosophical issues involved, and demonstrated that the antidote to the problem was to be found in the works of Ayn Rand and the literature of the Objectivist philosophy." [*] At the same time, she emphasized that students of Objectivism "cannot be and must not attempt to be the theoreticians of the subject they are studying." She repeated a guildeline from two years earlier: "It is our job to tell people what Objectivism is, it is your job to tell them that it is." Such limited horizons did little to satisfy right-wing students, particularly those chafing with enthusiasm for anarchism.

[* The footnote is #15, pg. 337]: Ayn Rand, "A Statement of Policy," The Objectivist, June 1968, 472.

==

ERRORS and/or possible errors in the above, ranging from trivial to significant. The issue about a requirement of signed statements for taking Peikoff's courses is the big one, with its repeating a myth that, if true, would cast discredit on Rand. Also on persons who took those courses.

- I don't think Leonard Peikoff was appointed "a philosophy professor" at the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn. Wasn't he an adjunct in the English department?

- The description "filled the pages" exaggerates. There were some excerpts from The Ominous Parallels.

- The courses Peikoff offered up to 1976 weren't specifically "in Objectivism."

- Unless there was a consent agreement required for taking that first post-break course discussed in posts above -- and none of the three of us, Brant, Phil, and I, who were there for that first lecture (Brant and I didn't take the course, though Phil did) thinks there was -- no signed consent agreement was required in Peikoff's courses. In courses I took during the '70s, there wasn't even an annoucement pertaining to the Brandens.

- The "June 1968" The Objectivist was the second post-break. The "May 1968" issue containing "To Whom It May Concern" was the first. (The magazine being well behind schedule, both of course were actually published months after the date given for the issue. The June one states that it was published in October 1968. "To Whom It May Concern" is dated September 15, 1968. There isn't a statement saying the month of publication.)

- Also, a couple tiddly copyediting details (once a copyeditor...): The word "theoreticians" is italicized in the original, and "It" starting the quoted quideline is "it."

Here's Anne Heller on Peikoff's Logic course:

From Ayn Rand and the World She Made

2009

Nan A. Talese/Doubleday

pg. 381

When Peikoff, now thirty-four years old, launched his own series of non-NBI lectures in the spring of 1969, students had to sign a waiver promising not to contact either of the pair or buy Nathaniel's forthcoming book or subsequent books.

[Question: When was Peikoff born? I thought he met AR the summer of 1950 and was 17 then.]

pg. 385

In January 1969 [notice the starting date discrepancy], [Peikoff] launched his own private lecture series, beginning with an "Introduction to Logic," follwed by a twelve-part series, "The Philosophy of Objectivism." [That wasn't until 1976. Peikoff gave courses on the history of philosophy in-between.] During the first lecture in the logic course, he answered a question about Branden's forthcoming book, The Psychology of Self-Esteem, with a stern warning that no one was to buy or read it. "Either you deal with him or you deal with Ayn Rand and myself," he reportedly declared. "Either/or. If you have dealings with him, I don't want you in this course." One student walked out of the auditorium and withdrew from the class. Her money was refunded but her name was stricken from The Objectivist subscriber rolls and she was barred from all future lectures and events.

--

endnotes:

381 students had to sign a waiver: TPOAR, p. 357.

[ I checked the reference to Passion. Barbara wrote: "Leonard Peikoff and Mary Ann Sures began giving lectures on aspects of Objectivism; before a prospective student could attend, he was required to sign a paper guaranteeing that he would have no dealings with Nathaniel or Barbara Branden, and that he would not purchase any of their future work." I think Chris Grieb said something about a loyalty oath being proposed for the Washington Objectivist club and the club disbanding. Did Mary Ann require signed statements for her course? I'm not remembering about that. I'll try later to see if I can dig up what Chris Grieb said.]

385 "Either you deal with him": Taped interview with Betty Scourby, conducted by Fred Cookinham, March 30, 2003 .

[Note: There's a big discrepancy between one student walking out and the 1/3 to 1/2 of the audience walking out which Phil reported. Also, the story from Scourby doesn't sound as if there was a formal announcement but only a reply to a question. My memory, like Phil's and Brant's, is of a formal announcement. Only I've remembered this as being given at the end instead of at the beginning, where Phil and Brant place it.]

Edited July 11, 2010 by Ellen Stuttle

[Ellen Stuttle]

More about the "intellectual heir" designation.

Burns makes this statement, for which she gives no reference:

Goddess of the Market,

Jennifer Burns,

Oxford University Press, 2009

pg. 280

[my underscore]

After Rand's death a small but active orthodox Objectivist community had emerged, led by Leonard Peikoff, who inherited Rand's estate and whom she publicly proclaimed her "intellectual heir."

In the material from Richard and Gen LaGreca Sanford I've referenced in posts above, Richard -- in his introductory overview -- makes an off-hand reference to Leonard Peikoff's being Rand's "intellectual heir." By "off-hand," I mean that he shows no indication of there being any controversy about the claimed title. It's impossible to tell from the material where Sanford had picked up the term -- whether simply from "Fact and Value," which article he doesn't mention, or from hearing it commonly used among ARI people and/or from hearing it in direct exchanges with Peikoff or...?

from:

Letter addressed to "Dear Objectivist,"

September 7, 1996,

by Richard F. Sanford, Ph.D.,

Page 8

[The material includes the statement, on Page 2, "Please feel free to make copies of these documents and to distribute them to interested parties."]

Through June of 1995 we [he and Gen] avoided talking to almost anyone about this issue, and then only to close friends in private. We never talked to casual acquaintances about it and never made a public statement for several reasons. 1) We had not heard Dr. Peikoff or a representative of ARI make a public statement giving their reasons. We were not going to make any statement without first-hand information from Dr. Peikoff and ARI out of fairness to them in particular, and from basic principles of justice. 2) Hoping that Dr. Peikoff, ARI, and the Reismans would resolve their dispute privately, if possible, we did not want to make it more public and jeopardize any sensitive discussions. 3) While we could not imagine what immoral actions the Reismans might have done, Gen and I both expected Dr. Peikoff, intellectual heir to Ayn Rand, to have some very damning evidence that we had not yet heard. In fact, it seemed equally inconceivable that the Reismans were immoral or that Dr. Peikoff would make charges of immorality without proof. But one or the other had to be true. By this time, we had each decided that the condemnation of the Reismans was unjustified, based on the context of knowledge available to us at that time. However, clear proof from Dr. Peikoff would have changed our minds.

[Ellen Stuttle]

More on Barbara Weiss.

I once inquired about offering a Peikoff course on tape: his 1976 lectures on The Philosophy of Objectivism.

The year was probably 1978 (I would have to dig up old correspondence to pin it down). It was definitely before Barbara Weiss quit working for Rand, because I spoke to her on the phone.

I've come to wonder if Heller misreported in saying that "Barbara Weiss resigned" (pg. 400, Ayn Rand the the World She Made).

Heller describes Weiss' changed opinion of Rand as occuring "[a]fter the Blumenthals' departure," and she speaks of Weiss as having worked for Rand "[o]ver the course of fifteen years." She doesn't say when Weiss started her employment with the magazine. However, there are remarks from Weiss about things happening before the split. A likely starting time of employment, I've figured, was in 1963, when the O'Connors and the Brandens moved into new apartments at 120 East Thirty-fourth Street and the publications office was re-located to the same building. If this is the correct starting time, then "fifteen years" would come to sometime in 1978.

However, courtesy of Dennis Hardin, I obtained the statement closing "The Objectivist Calendar." The statement, by Barbara Weiss, is from June 1979 and gives no hint of Weiss' intending to part company with Rand. So...did she ever actually *leave* Rand's employ? Maybe she just had less to do and didn't often see Rand after mid-'79.

The last issue (June, 1979) contains this letter from Barbara Weiss:

Dear Subscribers:

I am sorry to tell you that I am closing THE OBJECTIVIST CALENDAR. Because of the small amount of news and the constantly rising cost of production, it is no longer feasible for me to continue publication. This is, therefore, the last issue you will receive.

A full refund for the unexpired portion of your paid subscription will be mailed to you within the next four months. There are two reasons why it may take this long: 1) it will take my bank several weeks to supply the checks I need to send out refunds; and 2) I plan to prepare all the refund checks myself.

I truly regret having to disappoint my readers. Many of you have supported the CALENDAR since its inception, and I know you continue to be interested in news about Miss Rand and Objectivism. I am sorry I will be unable to provide this service in the future.

The mailing list of the CALENDAR will remain confidential; it will not be made available for sale or rental. It is likely, however, that this list will be used to notify former subscribers of lectures that will be given in their area. Therefore, please let us know of any change in your address. (When informing us of a new address, be sure to include your old address and zip code.)

In closing, I would like to thank you for your interest and your support. The notes of encouragement so many of you have sent me over the past few years have meant very much to me.

Miss Rand joins me in wishing each of you all the best in the future.

Cordial regards,

Barbara Weiss

Editor/Publisher

[Ellen Stuttle]

Rand's post-split "A Statement of Policy"

Since I was checking details pertaining to Rand's post-split "A Statement of Policy," I re-read the whole thing, for probably the first time in years. I was so interested by particulars of wording, I'm sorely tempted to copy in the whole piece, but I'm scared of occasioning further copyright woes here. Does anyone know if there's someplace on-line where the statement is reprinted?

I'll post just this part:

"A Statement of Policy"

Part I--by Ayn Rand

June 1968 (published in October 1968)

The Objectivist

pg. 7-8

I regard the spread of Objectivism through today's culture as an intellectual movement--i.e., a trend among independent individuals who share the same ideas--but not as an organized movement. The existence (and the later policies) of NBI contributed to certain misconceptions among some of its students and the public at large, which tended to put Objectivism in an equivocal position in this respect. I want, therefore, to make it emphatically clear that Objectivism is not an organized movement and is not to be regarded as such by anyone.

My role in regard to Objectivism is that of a theoretician. Since Objectivism is not a loose body of ideas, but a philosophical system originated by me and publicly associated with my name, it is my right and my responsibility to protect its intellectual integrity. I want, therefore, formally to state that the only authentic sources of information on Objectivism are: my own works (books, articles, lectures), the articles appearing in and the pamphlets reprinted by this magazine (The Objectivist, as well as The Objectivist Newsletter), books by other authors which will be endorsed in this magazine as specifically Objectivist literature, and such individual lectures or lecture courses as may be so endorsed. (This list includes also the book Who is Ayn Rand? by Nathaniel Branden and Barbara Branden, as well as the articles by these two authors which have appeared in this magazine in the past, but does not include their future works.)

I shall not establish or endorse any type of school or organization purporting to represent or be a spokesman for Objectivism. I shall repudiate and take appropriate action against any attempt to use my name or my philosophy, explicitly or implicitly, in connection with any project of that kind or any organization not authorized by me.

If students, supporters or friends of Objectivism wish to form local groups of their own--for such purposes as the study, discussion and dissemination of Objectivist ideas--they are welcome to do so. They can be of great value and help to the spread of Objectivism, and will earn my sympathetic interest and sincere gratitude--provided they do not attempt to act as spokesmen for Objectivism and do not associate or collaborate with Objectivism's avowed enemies.

[Ellen Stuttle]

Not everyone keeps the precise O-schism chronologies in their heads at all times for ready reference. I was infuriated by Schwartz's original screed as well, but had forgotten that it came out in 1986. And Ellen seemed to me, here, to be alluding to up-close vitriol strewn by Schwartz in the presence of others, rather than in print.

Correct, Steve, I meant up-close vitriol, maybe dating as far back as 1971, if that's the correct date of the founding of the Libertarian Party. I was talking about stuff from WELL before the schism with David. I'm not sure exactly when Schwartz appeared on the O'ist scene, but at latest it was some years before AR died.

[Addressing Robert] You're just indulging here in a personal slam for the sake of a personal slam, and you — unlike others here — have almost always risen above this.

There I don't agree. Maybe you just haven't read some of the threads.

Ellen

[Ellen Stuttle]

> Edith's getting "a taste of her own medicine."

What on earth would that mean? She never excommunicated anyone.

See the material in the block quotes in post #129, Phil, the post to which you were replying. The person who used that phrase was one of the same people from whom I heard tales of Edith's complaining about David Kelley's talking to libertarians. David ended up "excommunicated," and then some years later Edith ended up likewise.

Ellen

[Neil Parille]

Speaking of chronology, there has been some dispute concerning when the Blumenthals split from Rand. Barbara gives at as 1978. Heller, I recall, once says '77 and once '78.

Does the Objectivist Calendar provide any information?

-Neil Parille

[Neil Parille]

As far as Barbara Weiss resigning, I think this is probable. Cynthia Peikoff was Rand's secretary in her final year, so there was likely some sort of formal change.

-Neil Parille