gio

I have repeatedly seen posts on this forum or elsewhere on the Internet saying that Nathaniel Branden totally rejected Rothbard's claims in "The sociology of the Ayn Rand cult" or the rumors about Rothbard's Christian wife.

But I have never actually seen a statement from Nathaniel Branden on this subject.

Do you know where this can be found?

Thank you in advance.

On 1/18/2021 at 3:50 PM, Brant Gaede said:

If Barbara got her masters at NYU you'd likely have to go to NYU's library to read it.

--Brant

I wrote to NYU philosophy department, they say they don't have so old archive.

Any news?

Damned! This website was so practical!!

I realized that the interviews comes from VHS, dsitributed by the company "No Free Luch Distributors". (They distributed several interviews of Ayn Rand)

Do you know if this company still exists? Or if they sell this VHS still today? Do you have your own copy of the VHS?

This VHS can at least be borrowed (or seen) at three places, according to this page:

• Loyola University Chicago
• Pritzker Military Museum & Library
• University of South Florida

Do you know if there is any way now to see the interviews of Ayn Rand by Phil Donahue in better quality than the one available on Youtube?

Is there any VHS of the show? It seems compressed from VHS on Youtube.

As far as know, most Youtube interviews were uploaded by an account called "Jose Marabotto", do you guys know him?

In the documentary: Ayn Rand: A Sense of Life by Michael Paxton, we see short passages of the interviews in much better quality than Youtube.

Hello,

Sorry to dig up this old thread, but I'm looking for this article by Nathaniel Branden. Is it available somewhere on the Internet? In the archives of the New York Times website?

54 minutes ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

It tells me you are looking?

Sorry I used a french expression, I don't know if it works in english.

Anyway I found my answer in Ayn Rand Answers, page 75. She answered in 1972 in the lecture "A Nation's Unity".

I'm talking about Atlantis in the novel Atlas Shrugged ! Of course !!

I heard a lecture where Ayn Rand was answering a question where she was making a hypothesis about the number of people in Atlantis (it was about a thousand I think, but I have to check) in Atlas Shrugged.

I can not refind it, does that tell you something?

Thank you.

7 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

there's always time for "yo."

Excuse me, I didn't get what does it means.

6 hours ago, BaalChatzaf said:

Not necessarily.  If you take God to mean an energy-to work  flow, what you have is the current Cosmos and the second law of thermodynamics.   Who said God has to be a person?  Only the pre-scientific  primitives.  Spinoza took God to be the universe itself. 

By definition, the idea of God refers to a will. This is irrationnal.

And it wouldn't be the case in U.S. ?
Can you give an exemple?

As a Frenchman, I have often wondered whether I lived in a socialist country or not. My conviction is that in France we simply live in a mixed system, as in the United States. Of course the United States is much more capitalist than France, but France is much more capitalist than Cuba. There is, however, more common ground between the France and U.S. than between France and Cuba. Why ? Because basically, France, from its start, is a country that recognizes human rights and property, at least formally. As Ayn Rand said in his essay Collectivized "Rights" (from VOS): « There is a difference between a country that recognizes the principle of individual rights, but does not implement it in practice, and a country that denies and flouts it explicitly. » Read the french Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, which is in the beginning of the french constitution, you'll see it is fully compatible with objectivist view of politic and rights.

5 minutes ago, Wolf DeVoon said:

The Immortal Indestructible Bachelor is perfectly plausible.

4 hours ago, anthony said:

Hi gio: What you say I agree with. Radical Islam is recent proof of what religion can be quickly and easily turned into. ('Faith and Force', by AR). Briefly, I have argued however, that Christians (for one religion) have matured and grown, to the point where they are the major proponents of 'life value'- while also, importantly, of Church and State separation too. So dispensing with "force", for the time being.

Do they have "value" right, but for the wrong reasons? Sure. But I don't see the moral ~or rational~ equivalent in the rising tide of a-principled, convictionless skepticism - the secularist Westerners who have quite renounced the concept of 'value' when turning away from religion, and gained - what? Science? Other 'gods', the State, the People - the Earth? All I see on the whole, is the growth of something more dangerous to freedom, reason and individualism than religion in the West, and that's philosophic skepticism. Religion isn't going away, it is a fact of life - reality to be faced - and the logical, objective argument against Faith has limited appeal, anyway. You 'believe' or you don't. With all our basic differences, I find more sense and rapport with many Christians, those who are decent, often rational, productive and self-responsible people, and who are under concerted attack by the hard Left, a 'religion' by another name (progressivism, etc.). They are anything but moral agnostics and moral relativists, as is the typical sign of the times. They personally 'know' why murder is wrong. And who would you prefer to be washed up on that deserted island with? After all this - if theocracy were on the rise in the West, I'd be arguing much the other way.

Hi anthony! I didn't say christians are worse or better than leftists. I said that irrationality leads more easily to murder than rationality (because fundamentally, irrationality is the realm of arbitrariness). And the idea of God is irrational.
Thus, someone whose morality stems from God (or any other irrationnal idea) will be more inclined to murder than someone whose morality stems from reason.

I haven't read the whole topic but the answer to the question is very easy and simple for any objectivist worthy of this name. Perhaps what I'm going to say has already been said.

• By definition, moral choice, good and evil, presuppose values.
• Values presuppose life.
• Thus, destroying someone's life is against life, so against all values, in general.

No need of God.

Actually the idea of God can lead you easily to murder. Believing in God is based on faith, revelation. This means giving up (at least partially) his reason and this means that this kind of person can accept an idea that has no logical or rational justification, on the basis of a feeling, a desire, a revelation. On this basis, you can be led to murder. Or not. That's just chance, depending of your current desire, according to what your God is supposed to say, etc.

You should have asked to any french guy (like me) : Le Pen's success was obviously impossible. Almost any french, even Le Pen's supporters, could have told you. This wasn't comparable with the american situation and Donald Trump.

If you're interested, check out what I've said there and if you have question, it will be a pleasure to me to answer here.

I must say that even if Macron is far from an objectivist perpective, Marine Le Pen was really much much more far than him. Economically, she is socialist. Macron has some traces of pro-capitalism. Marine Le Pen has no.