The Latest from James Valliant on Rothbard and Rand

[Neil Parille]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEcJXomQ4eU

According to James, he and Rothbard were "good friends."  This seems to be the first he's ever said that.

[Neil Parille]

Valliant also claims (around 14 mins) that Rand quite smoking because she became convinced that the science indicated it was dangerous.  Of course she quite smoking because her physician showed her an x-ray of her lungs inidcating that she likely had cancer,  She put her cigarette out and never smoked again.  This account is not only in Barbara's bio but in 100 Voices (which has an interview with Dr. Dwortezky).  Valliant is lying.

[Peter]

From: Nathaniel Branden To: atlantis Subject: ATL: Rand and smoking Date: Tue, 05 Jun 2001 16:05:42 -0700. When Devers Branden visited Ayn Rand, as reported in the revised edition of my memoir, Devers still smoked (1980-81). When Devers pulled out a cigarette AR said to her, "Oh, you really should not smoke.  It's very bad for your health." Devers promised to quit and she did. Nathaniel Branden

From: BBfromM To: atlantis Subject: Re: ATL: Question for BB, NB or others... Date: Sun, 2 Dec 2001 11:34:45 EST. Tom Devine asked: <<In what ways did Ayn Rand's fiction reflect her own suffering?  Are Roark and Galt's painful isolation from their loved ones a reflection of Rand's own melancholy?  Is there particular significance to be found in the fact that her work glorified happiness to such an extreme while she experienced so little happiness in her own life? Is there special meaning to her romanticizing of smoking in her fiction in regards to her own bad habit?>>

These are very interesting questions, to which I'm happy to respond. 1. <<In what ways did Ayn Rand's fiction reflect her own suffering?>>

I think that, especially in ATLAS SHRUGGED, it did reflect her own growing bitterness and near despair with the state of the culture. Fiction is autobiography, whether the writer intends it or not. And as she grew more bitter, so did her work. Yet, in all of her fiction, including ATLAS, one sees her unconquerable worship of joy that I believe was more basic to her than any suffering or bitterness. The external world created the suffering; Ayn Rand created the love of joy.

2. <<Are Roark and Galt's painful isolation from their loved ones a reflection of Rand's own melancholy?>>

I don't think so. They are, instead, a reflection of her love of drama and conflict in fiction. If there is also an autobiographical element, I believe it was a reflection of her own isolation in different ways from the men she loved in her lifetime.

3.  <<Is there particular significance to be found in the fact that her work glorified happiness to such an extreme while she experienced so little happiness in her own life? >>

No, I don't believe the two are retial part of her view of life, both philosophically and personally. Let me add that I would not say she experienced <<so little happiness in her own life.>> But her happiness came mostly from her work, much less so from her personal relationships. Although her early years with Frank O'Connor and her early months with Nathaniel Branden brought her much joy. As did her friendship with Nathaniel and with me, and later with the collective.

4. <<Is there special meaning to her romanticizing of smoking in her fiction in regards to her own bad habit?>>

Not directly. She truly saw smoking as <<fire tamed at man's fingertips>> which is probably why she began smoking when she did. And she did not see her habit as a bad one; in the years in which she glorified smoking, much less was known about it than is known today, and it was not unreasonable for her to say that there was no scientific proof that smoking was dangerous to one's health. Barbara

From: BB To: atlantis Subject: ATL: Waa Ayn Rand ever wrong? To Ellen Moore Date: Tue, 5 Jun 2001 11:05:03 EDT To Ellen Moore: To date, you never have said -- and have denied it when an instance was raised -- that Ayn Rand made a mistake. I want to ask you about the following: Ayn Rand smoked a great deal, and for many years. And she announced often, publicly as well as privately, that there was insufficient evidence to prove that smoking caused cancer or any other disease. Many Objectivist students across the country felt safe in continuing to smoke because of her convincing arguments against statistical "proof." Then, when she was diagnosed with lung cancer, she stopped smoking at once, finally convinced that the evidence was sufficient. Her doctor did not have to tell her to stop; she did it before he could raise the subject. When she was well, and back at work, friends said to her that she really should tell people that she had changed her mind, that now she was convinced that smoking was indeed dangerous to life. She flatly refused to do so. The reasons is not relevant; I can think of no reason good enough to warrant her silence when the results could be the death of some of the people who had accepted her original arguments and therefore had continued smoking.

For those of you who wish to know her so-called reason, it was her horror of announcing that she had cancer, because she believed that any serious illness resulted at least in part from "wrong premises." She could not bring herself to inform her students that she had any wrong premises, since she had so often told them and countless others that she had none, and had believed it herself. No matter how long and how hard her friends tried to persuade her, she refused. And she spent months, probably years, trying to discover the wrong premises that had resulted in her cancer. Ellen, my question is: Do you think Ayn Rand was wrong not to tell her students her new conclusion about smoking?  Barbara

From: BB To: atlantis Subject: Re: ATL: Waa Ayn Rand ever wrong? To Ellen Moore Date: Tue, 5 Jun 2001 14:41:02 EDT. Tim Hopkins wrote: <<  So I do think that the reason for not telling her [Ayn Rand's] students and admirers that she had changed her mind on the smoking issue is important, since it is possible (again, correct me if I am wrong, since I did not know her) she was *not* convinced of a causal relation between smoking and cancer, and stopped smoking on the basis that such a relationship was probable, not proven. >>

Even if it is the case that she considered that the relationship between smoking and cancer was probable, not proven -- I believe that she had the moral obligation to tell her students and admirers that much. It would have stopped many of them from continuing to smoke.  Barbara

From: Steve Reed To: Atlantis Subject: ATL: Re: Was Ayn Rand ever wrong? Date: Tue, 05 Jun 2001 14:26:57 -0500. Barbara Branden wrote that Ayn Rand refused, after her treatment for lung cancer, to >tell people that she had changed her mind, that now she was convinced that smoking was indeed dangerous to life. She flatly refused to do so.

Was it that she had, in fact, decided (or not) that smoking was genuinely dangerous to -human life,- in more general terms? Or that it clearly had been a cause of harm to -her own life,- in specific terms? I never quite understood which alternative was involved here. (Perhaps something else.)

> The reason is not relevant; I can think of no reason good enough to warrant her silence when the results could be the death of some of the  people who had accepted her original arguments and therefore had continued smoking.

She didn't show sound judgment in being silent, insofar as friends and listeners could misconstrue her. It wasn't being honest. Yet "results," I'd have to say, is a touch too strong. Those other people weren't shut off from external evidence, and could freely judge tobacco risks for themselves.

It would only tend toward being a causal "result" for those who -substituted- Rand's judgments about this evidence for their own appraisals. We do that all the time when relying on expert testimony. Many strong admirers of Rand (such as I) have had moments of doing so. Yet whether Rand had enough of a scientific basis at hand to be properly relied upon as an expert on this issue is another matter. She had one genuine broader philosophic truth at hand, that "correlation is not causation" -- yet she ended up using this, it seems, as a mere rationalization.

> For those of you who wish to know her so-called reason, it was her  > horror of announcing that she had cancer, because she believed that any serious illness resulted at least in part from "wrong premises." [...]

I remember this from your biography. Yet only now did it strike me how close this is to, of all potential beliefs, that of Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of "Christian Science." I'm glad her correspondent H.L. Mencken, who ripped the CSers to sparkling shreds, never discerned this in her.  Similar mind-over-disease cults have had a long history of popular appeal in Russia, over two centuries -- and have had a newly fueled appeal with Russia's equivalent of tabloid TV, in the past decade. Especially in light of Chris Sciabarra's recent research, I wonder if some of -that- perspective sneaked into her outlook at a tender age. It's no calumny on Rand to note this possibility, as some of the Orthodox have implied in bashing Barbara's bio. Irrationalism has deep roots, and the human mind deals with too many matters at once to make it easy to exclude others' bad judgments. With the host of enemies she cultivated -- itself one sign of her success -- I find myself surprised that Rand didn't have that many more such a-rational turns, in the daily human process of coping.

From: BB To: atlantis Subject: Re: ATL: Re: Waa Ayn Rand ever wrong? To Ellen Moore Date: Tue, 5 Jun 2001 18:16:56 EDT. You are quite right, Jeff, but this was not Ayn Rand's position. She did think that her smoking had been at least a partial cause of her lung cancer. And she should have told this to NBI's students. Barbara