Laure

I think I vacillate between Bliss Ninny and Picador: Bliss Ninny Picador

I'll post a picture here of my beautiful house all lit up.

Really good post, Matus. Shayne, even if the U.S. were perfect in every way, I don't think our shining-beacon-ness alone would save the rest of the world (*edit*), OR keep us safe from the rest of the world.

Nobody said it was an all-inclusive identification of human nature!! We are just talking about rights here. Rights derive from one aspect of human nature, the fact that we require freedom of thought and action in order to thrive. The concept of rights doesn't have to subsume every aspect of human nature; let's keep it simple! What's the definition of a right? Merriam-Webster: "something to which one has a just claim", "the power or privilege to which one is justly entitled" -- these definitions seem pretty circular to me; they just say that a right is something you have a right to. Rand: "A 'right' is a moral principle defining and sanctioning a man's freedom of action in a social context." Since rights are about freedom of action, it is impossible to violate someone's rights by doing nothing. If it were possible to violate someone's rights by doing nothing, that means the other person has the right to take away your right to freedom of action - to determine what you have to do. How do we decide who has the right to take away our rights? Oh, whoever is needy, starving baby in the woods being the prime example. It's either/or - "live and let live" vs. "tin cup as a claim check."

Great post, Jeff. Michael, it all comes down to, "Does the need of one person constitute a claim against another?" With the baby-in-the-woods example, you are saying Yes. Most of us say NO! It doesn't mean we would leave the baby to starve.

(Sorry, I can't even find an appropriate emoticon for this!!!) I'm trying to imagine people milling around, drinking their Cokes, chatting on their cell phones, watching people get nails driven through their hands and feet.... Humans are weird.

Michael, read the excerpt a little more carefully. Notice the sentence, "She wanted to have the Collective(1) over that night to celebrate. Then we left. It was still daylight." My reading is that she completed the writing sometime during the day, and at that point, Mary Ann, Frank, Joan, and Leonard were there. She had in her hand the final hand-written page. Mary Ann typed up all but the last few lines, Rand typed the last few lines. LATER ON that evening, she had The Collective over to celebrate. Barbara brought a camera and said, "how about posing with the competed manuscript?" Thus, the photo. I think the "only moments after completing it" in the caption is a dramatic exaggeration.

I think my last couple of TNIs have been sent to Name as well... haven't seen one in a few months.

I don't understand; what was snide about it?

As I told my son yesterday, "Do your homework now. You can put off the procrastinating until later."

I'm an ISTJ, the S being the weakest (lots of N mixed in). I wonder if we've got Rand right. Couldn't she have been an ENTJ? Do introverts typically have people over to the house and stay up with them until 3 in the morning? Might all we introverts be projecting this trait onto her?

Just want to register a "me too" for Judith's excellent post #134.

Oh come on; first someone says she didn't understand her own husband, and now she didn't understand her own fictional creations either?

Amen! We can't always figure out how someone else feels or felt by using introspection.

Barbara, I think your post expresses how a neutral third-party would evaluate the back-and-forth between Ed and Lindsay. If Ed really intended to extract a promise from Lindsay that he would "behave himself" at the seminar, well, he didn't get that promise. People have made their views known, and I think the best approach is to vote with our feet, whether to decide not to go to the seminar, or to go, and to avoid Lindsay's talks. Either way, TAS will get the message. Perigo is not a believer in civility. He thinks civility in the face of "evil" is a vice. Here's what I would've told him on that thread, if I hadn't avoided it because I don't want to get piled onto and pummelled!! In deciding if anything is a virtue or not, we have to look at what we're trying to accomplish. If you are trying to sway opinions, I think unconditional civility can be very effective. Take Ayaan Hirsi Ali as an example. Here's a woman who is unfailingly civil, and that's what knocks your socks off when you watch her speak. Think about the characters in Atlas Shrugged. Were any of the heroes ever uncivil? I can't think of an instance. How did Francisco conduct himself at dinner parties? Even when Dagny shot the guard, she was polite to him first! I think Perigo doesn't consider civility to be an option for a couple of reasons. One, he thinks that being polite to an opponent is immoral. I don't know why he thinks this. Two, it's a personality trait - he's naturally uncivil. Three, it's a way to get his crowd, the people who already agree with him, all whipped up - he's a showman.

I agree! Not sure. Interesting. Shayne, I think our positions are really not all that different.

Shayne, I think I can meet you halfway on this. I don't think that the idea that Rand made mistakes invalidates her philosophy. On the other hand, one of her ideas was that a rational morality shouldn't be too hard for ordinary people to follow. I seem to think in analogies a lot, so here's another one. What would you think of an obese diet doctor? It could be that the diet he's promoting is healthy, but he just doesn't follow it, but if one of his points is that his diet is easy for ordinary people to follow, wouldn't his obesity lead one to doubt his diet theory? (I don't think Rand was "morally obese" , but maybe she was spotted going off her diet occasionally!)

Wolf, I think one of her most important philosophical insights was the idea that altruism as a moral imperative leads to horrors when applied to political systems. I did say "part of Rand's job description" - I, too, think of her as "a novelist and dramatist, an artist above all".

Thanks, everyone, for your thoughts on this. Robert, I don't think James Valliant thinks Ayn Rand was perfect. I am on his side in challenging the idea that "moral perfection" is even a valid concept or way of looking at things. Part of Rand's job description was "moral philosopher", so judging her own morality is relevant. But this "perfection" emphasis is just wrong. Tyra Banks' job description is "supermodel". If someone is a fan of Tyra Banks, do you challenge him and say, come on, admit she's not physically perfect, admit it, she's not, she's not, she's not!! Another thing I wish people would remember is that whatever Rand's flaws, she certainly can't do anything about them now, so why focus on them? She is not here to either defend herself, to tell us we are mistaken about our facts, or to admit she was wrong about anything. If I could have had input into Valliant's book, I would have told him to focus on refuting Rand's most unfair critics, and to point out that they sometimes pull some negative bits from the Brandens' books and magnify and distort them in an attempt to discredit Rand. I don't think Barbara Branden is a villain for giving her view of Rand. I thought her book was good, well-written, and interesting, but understandably colored by her own personal context. (For the record - I know nobody's asking my opinion - but I did not like the movie.) But if Valliant's book had had the focus I would have recommended, it may have come off as him saying, "see, she wasn't THAT bad", which isn't really a ringing endorsement! It's better to focus on the topic, rather than on other people's views of the topic. I am looking forward to the publication of more biographical information on Rand. I want her to be remembered fairly and not slandered when she's not able to defend herself. I was playing on Yahoo Answers the other night (mostly answering math questions 'cuz it's fun) and did a search on "Ayn" to see what's being said out there. Found one answer which got voted "best answer" that gave some biographical info on Rand, and also mentioned that it was just a shame that she became addicted to crack cocaine in her later years. Gaaahhh!!!! The "asker" replied with something along the lines of, "thanks for the answer, yeah too bad about the crack addiction, so sad about that..." Did a big long game of "telephone", starting with Rand's diet pills, end up this way? Stuff like that makes me wonder about how we treat other historical figures. Did Beethoven really have syphillis, or is that just something that someone made up?!?

Brant, with all due respect, how do you know that her view of her husband was unrealistic? Did you know him better than she did?

Oh God, what a civil place this is. OK, Bob, here's the thing. Your chance of getting cancer or some other horrible disease from smoking is positive, but something less than 100%, correct? Some people enjoy smoking, for whatever reason. My chance of getting food poisoning from eating raw cookie dough is positive, but something less than 100%. I enjoy eating raw cookie dough on occasion. My chance of dying in a car accident in my little 1800-pound Honda CRX is positive, but something less than 100%. It is also significantly more likely than dying in a car accident in, let's say, a Volvo, weighing twice as much, and having airbags and other advanced safety features. But I enjoy driving my CRX. I favor a society in which I can decide for myself if various behaviors are worth the risk, to me, rather than to have the government tell me that a certain behavior is too risky for me to engage in, or too risky for a business to provide me with.

Got your location right here. Brant, you know this building in town, don't you?

Gosh, thanks!

I'm not sure if this goes in the Living Room, or in Rants, or Humor. MSK, feel free to move it. Last post I made here, I expressed my exasperation with what I see as Rand-bashing. I said I did not appreciate people such as Neil Parille evaluating Rand as fundamentally immoral. Neil later replied that he did not evaluate Rand in this way. I sure thought he did! This made me go back and re-read some of his posts on SOLO, and I have an observation that might be useful. Neil has been engaged in criticizing James Valliant and his book, "The Passion of Ayn Rand's Critics" for some time. When "cultists" like me read his posts, we end up subconsciously computing a sort of emotional median, which results in our conclusion that Neil is bashing Rand. Some examples: Neil writes: "Valliant accuses Nathaniel Branden of alleging that Rand engaged in “grandiose dishonesty” in making her claim in the About the Author postscript to Atlas Shrugged that “no one helped me . . . .” The emotional bottom-line: "Rand engaged in “grandiose dishonesty”." Neil writes: "The extent to which James Valliant is willing to misrepresent his sources can be seen in his distortion of Barbara Branden’s discussion of Rand’s use of a diet medicine, Dexamyl (which contains an amphetamine). " Bottom line: "Rand used amphetamines!" Neil writes: "Robert Campbell has pointed out that the source for Valliant's misreport is apparently Jeff Walker's The Ayn Rand Cult. "Barbara Branden relates that toward the end when people came into Rand's apartment, 'the first thing they smelled was alcohol, and Frank had clearly been drinking,' even in the morning. Now 'Frank would fly into rages over nothing.' After he died, his studio was found littered with empty liquor bottles." " Bottom line: "Frank was a drunk!" Neil writes: "In addition to my general point that negative aspects of Rand’s personality have been confirmed by those who knew Rand, Walker, Cox and Doherty have obviously made their own independent evaluation of the credibility of many of the sources used by Barbara Branden. It is thus unfair for Valliant to claim that they uncritically rely on PAR for their negative assessments of Rand." Bottom line: "Rand's personality negative." Neil writes: "Valliant claims that Branden alleges that Rand’s statements concerning the changes in the revised We the Living were the product of “self-delusion.” " Bottom line: "Rand was deluded." Neil writes: "Although Valliant didn’t have space to mention what the Blumenthals told Branden, he does quote what Allan Blumenthal told Walker, viz, that he believes that Objectivism was created by Rand as self-therapy." Bottom line: "Objectivism was created by Rand as self-therapy." Neil, do you get what I'm saying here? Buried in these long chains of "Person A said that Person B quoted Person C as saying that Person D was mistaken about Person E..... there is always a negative statement about Ayn Rand. Before anyone makes any comments about my reading-comprehension problems, let me say that I think I "get" that Neil is criticizing Valliant. My point is, it sure feels like he's criticizing Rand. Not just criticizing but relentlessly nitpicking. Not sure if this post will do any good, but I'm wondering if maybe part of "our problem" is insensitivity to each other's emotions -- I bet 99% of us come out to be "T"s (thinkers) not "F"s (feelers) on the Myers-Briggs test, and hey, I like that. But, we do have emotions, and what we write has an emotional effect. As a matter of fact, I think this whole thing with Lindsay Perigo goes back to hurt feelings. Heaven knows, he's hurt people's feelings, and people have reacted in anger. And his feelings have been hurt, too, by the accusation of alcoholism. And he reacted in anger. Kat has expressed her hurt feelings over TAS's invitation of Lindsay, and I applaud her honesty and I think I understand where she is coming from. Hate to get all touchy-feely, but maybe we can all try to be more honest about how we feel (I mean not just anger!), and try to be more sensitive to others, and less sensitive (thin-skinned) ourselves.

Neil, if you differ with Rand on certain philosophical issues or positions, that's fine. I differ with Rand on a few things as well. But she is still my hero. What I am sick and tired of, is the insistence that Rand was fundamentally immoral, and the insistence that anyone who thinks she was good is some kind of a cultist. I don't care to see one of my heroes constantly picked at in that manner. Some on this site picked at Jim the same way when he asserted that he does not lie. I could almost see Nelson from The Simpsons, pointing and laughing, "Ha Ha! Jim says he doesn't lie! That's so stupid, everybody knows that everybody is dishonest!!" What does that say about Nelson? Shayne, I think it IS virtuous to ignore parts of reality just to be able to "fly the banner high". Ignoring the minor flaws, or just personality traits you might not have liked, about your hero IS a good thing, just like it's a good thing to ignore the minor flaws of your spouse and focus instead on what you love about him or her. If that makes me, or Jim, a cultist, so be it.