Robert Campbell

Ellen,

I would definitely have to look up her definition of psychologizing.

So I just did:

"condemning or excusing specific individuals on the grounds of their psychological problems, real or invented, in the absence of or contrary to factual evidence." (The Objectivist, March 1971, p. 2)

Ever since I first read it, I've thought that Rand's article on psychologzing was one of the worst things she ever wrote--a terrible muddle. Not least because she fails to lay down any criteria of evidence for psychological diagnoses.

And the strictures that she lays down at the end of the article, about confining your judgments of other people to their conscious minds and conscious convictions only, cannot be consistently adhered to by human beings.

Her real complaint seems targeted on the use of psychological diagnoses to excuse a person's behavior. She appears to have had far less trouble with imputations of non-obvious motives made in order to condemn a person's behavior--except when they emanated from persons hostile to herself or to her point of view.

And now that Valliant's book has revealed the full extent of Rand's own "counseling" activities (not to mention her propensity to see major flaws in someone she admits not understanding), I can't read her paragraphs that light into "amateur psychologizers"--or her advice about not asking a friend to become a therapist--without groaning.

Because I regard the article as so far below Rand's usual standard, I've always avoided using the word "psychologize," and am prone to object when I hear others using it. I'd go so far as to say that, by Rand's own standards, "psychologize" is an anti-concept.

Robert

Jonathan,

How quickly things change.

Diana Hsieh's statement (from 2003) pre-dates her public denunciations of David Kelley and of Nathaniel and Barbara Branden, and her public alignment with the Ayn Rand Institute (all of which took place in 2004).

Ayn Rand's dishonesty in the aftermath of her break with Nathaniel Branden is certainly disappointing to me, but hardly devastating. I admire Rand as a novelist and a philosopher, but her personal conduct is ultimately irrelevant to me.

Ms. Hsieh now insists that anyone who admires Rand as a novelist and a philosopher must also venerate her as a moral paragon--while anathematizing Nathaniel and Barbara Branden as "false Objectivists" and serpents in the Garden.

Robert Campbell

Ellen,

I wrote that piece on Rand and jealousy in November 2005, which already seems a long time ago.

I'm inclined to agree that jealousy vs. insult is 6 of one vs. half-dozen of the other. Whatever you prefer to call her emotional reaction to Patrecia, I do think that it involved insecurity and a major ego threat.

Michael,

In November, I made that comment about Jim Valliant's motives out of charity. I already had serious doubts about what he was up to--and no illusions whatsoever about what his claque (Holly Valliant and Casey Fahy) was up to. But I didn't want to airbrush my essay...

Since then, I've become as convinced as you are that Valliant wants people to worship Rand, not to understand and appreciate her philosophy.

Robert

The March 22 entry on Diana Hsieh's blog (http://www.dianahsieh.com/blog/2006/03/my-...nd-barbara.html) expresses the Rand-worshipping mentality with considerable clarity. Of those who were active in IOS/TOC when she was there, Ms. Hsieh says:

Many people attempted to erect an untenable wall between the person of Ayn Rand and her fiction and philosophy, disclaiming any interest in the person, even though disdain for [the] person clearly bled over into disdain for the fiction and philosophy.

Robert

Michael and Ellen,

I made a similar point when I was last active on bulletin boards (http://rebirthofreason.com/Articles/Campbe...d_Jealous.shtml).

Those who look to Ayn Rand as the ultimate exemplar of Objectivist virtue will take any indication that she was jealous of another woman as significantly detracting from her status as a moral paragon.

Those who have not succeeded in separating Rand’s ideas from Rand the person will interpret such indications as threats to the Objectivist ethics, if not to the entire system.

From a genuinely objective standpoint, Rand’s philosophy can be appreciated or criticized without any need to drag in the details of her personal life. Indeed, those who insist that Rand had to be morally perfect, or she couldn’t have written Atlas Shrugged, are obstructing the objective assessment of her ideas. They are standing just as squarely in the way as those who maintain that Rand had an affair with a younger man that ended badly, so she had to be nutty and immoral and couldn’t have had any ideas worth assessing.

The problem, for all of us who would much prefer to be discussing Rand’s ideas, is that many of Rand’s professed admirers are continuing to make an issue of her personal life.

James Valliant has claimed, I believe sincerely, that his goal is to clear the way for an objective appreciation of Rand’s ideas. But it hasn’t worked out that way. While his efforts have yet to make a dent among convinced anti-Randians, they have pumped up new fervor among Rand-worshippers.

In the present context, then, there is no way around addressing certain specifics of Ayn Rand’s life and character. If the job is not done, fairly and objectively, the Rand-worshippers will declare victory (as some are already doing) and will press on all the more vigorously with their false alternative: uncritical pro-Randianism or uncritical anti-Randianism.

Now that I can type with two hands again, I'll try to contribute to these discussions occasionally...but not at anything approaching the pace of my posts to the old SOLOHQ.

Robert

Ellen,

Well, that settles it: Rand removed the reference to the "Stolen Concept" article from later printings of ITOE.

I remember wondering, when I first read ITOE, how anyone who hadn't read Nathaniel Branden's 1963 article would have a clue what Rand meant in her Foreword, when she casually mentioned the fallacy of the stolen concept.

Robert

Michael,

The first paperback version of Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology was published by The Objectivist, Inc. in 1967 and remained in print until shortly before the Mentor edition came out. It was shaped like a copy of The Objectivist, except thicker, and had the green stripe that you recall.

Stolen Concept

On stolen concept, I found the following reference by Ayn Rand in the "Forward" of "Introduction To Objectivist Epistemology," The Objectivist (July 1966):

These are the reasons why I chose to introduce you to Objectivist epistemology by presenting my theory of concepts. I entitle this series an "Introduction," because the theory is presented outside of its full context. For instance, I do not include here a discussion of the validity of man's senses—since the arguments of those who attack the senses are merely variants of the fallacy of the "stolen concept."' (That fallacy consists of "the act of using a concept while ignoring, contradicting or denying the validity of the concepts on which it logically and genetically depends." See "The Stolen Concept" by Nathaniel Branden, THE OBJECTIVIST NEWSLETTER, January 1963.)

In the Meridian 1990 Expanded Second Edition, edited by Harry Binswanger and Leonard Peikoff, the same paragraph reads as follows:

These are the reasons why I chose to introduce you to Objectivist epistemology by presenting my theory of concepts. I entitle this work an "Introduction," because the theory is presented outside of its full context. For instance, I do not include here a discussion of the validity of man's senses—since the arguments of those who attack the senses are merely variants of the fallacy of the "stolen concept."

Note from Michael: This 1990 version of ITOE is the only one I have at present, but I will go on the presumption that this paragraph was given the same way in the 1979 First Mentor Printing. Also, in the early 70's, before I went to Brazil, I used to own a paperback printing of ITOE that was thin, but wider and taller than a typical paperback, with a cover that had a green stripe running down it. I don't know the date and lost that book in Brazil, but I seem to remember that it did not include the Peikoff essay, "The Analytic-Synthetic Dichotomy."...

Does anybody else remember this original printing? I would be interested to see if it came out before the break and if the paragraph mentioning Nathaniel Branden was altered there also.

In those days, before it was added to the 1979 edition, Peikoff's essay was for sale as a leaflet.

I have a copy of ITOE from the 4th printing (1973) of the 1967 edition. In the Foreword Rand has already dropped the citation of Nathaniel Branden's 1963 article. I haven't seen a 1967 printing for a long time, but I don't recall any differences in the text.

If so, this is one editorial change that Rand made to one of her articles that was not a reaction to the break.

Robert