Does anyone know??

[Backlighting]

Whether AR enjoyed watching any sports??

[BAMF]

I couldn't find anything about AR specifically when I googled, but I did find these two neat little articles.

The Joy of Football

Baseball: More Than Just A Game

[Barbara Branden]

Whether AR enjoyed watching any sports??

No, she didn't.

Barbara

[Philip Coates]

That's okay, no one's perfect.

[zantonavitch]

In general, men like watching mindless churning sports events (and action-adventure movies) that don't ultimately go anywhere, while women like mindless churning soap operas and Harlequin romance novels that don't ultimately go anywhere. B) I wonder if AR liked soap operas?

[BAMF]

That's okay, no one's perfect.

LOL. ;)

Sports aren't mindless. I'm a woman and I like to watch them (though not religiously). And I absolutely hate soap operas. Ain't I backward?

[Dragonfly]

Now she has risen in my esteem.

[Chris Grieb]

Kori

I don't find anything wrong in your choices.

On television Miss Rand liked Perry Mason, The Untouchables, and Dragnet

Barbara, When did Miss Rand get a television set? Did she have one when she was working on Atlas?

[BaalChatzaf]

Now she has risen in my esteem.

I read somewhere that AR liked tap-dancing. Perhaps Ms. Brandon could verify this.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Brant Gaede]

Now she has risen in my esteem.

I read somewhere that AR liked tap-dancing. Perhaps Ms. Brandon could verify this.

Ba'al Chatzaf

It's part of the public record. She loved it an she loved Fred Astair who combined tap with elements of classical ballet.

--Brant

[BAMF]

Now she has risen in my esteem.

Why don't you like sports?

[Dragonfly]

Why don't you like sports?

I'm not saying I don't like sports, I like to play tennis myself. But watching sports, no thanks...

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Now she has risen in my esteem.

I read somewhere that AR liked tap-dancing. Perhaps Ms. Brandon could verify this.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Bob,

Why do you need Barbara for that? Just read "Art and Cognition" from The Romantic Manifesto (pp. 68-69).

I want to mention a form of dancing that has not been developed into a full system, but possesses the key elements on which a fun, distinctive system could be built: tap dancing. It is of American Negro origin; it is singularly appropriate to America and distinctly un-European. Its best exponents are Bill Robinson and Fred Satire (who combines it with some elements of the ballet).

Tap dancing is completely synchronized with, responsive and obedient to the music—by means of a common element crucial to music and to man's body: rhythm. This form permits the dancer no pause, no stillness: his feet can touch the ground only long enough to accent the rhythm's beat. From start to finish, no matter what the action of his body, his feet continue that even, rapid tapping; it is like a long series of dashes underscoring his movements; he can leap, whirl, kneel, yet never miss a beat. It looks, at times, as if it is a contest between the man and the music, as if the music is daring him to follow—and he is following lightly, effortlessly, almost casually. Complete obedience to the music? The impression one gets is: complete control—man's mind in effortless control of his expertly functioning body. The keynote is: precision. It conveys a sense of purpose, discipline, clarity—a mathematical kind of clarity—combined with an unlimited freedom of movement and an inexhaustible inventiveness that dares the sudden, the unexpected, yet never loses the central, integrating line: the music's rhythm. No, the emotional range of tap dancing is not unlimited: it cannot express tragedy or pain or fear or guilt; all it can express is gaiety and every shade of emotion pertaining to the joy of living. (Yes, it is my favorite form of the dance.)

It's been out there for years in Rand's own published words. You might be interested in Rand's incursion into choreography, mixing tap dancing with ballet. Here is an excerpt from her notes for the projected novel, "To Lorne Dieterling," dated January 1, 1966 (The Journals of Ayn Rand, pp. 714-715).

The two basic "sense of life" music numbers are: "Will o' the Wisp" (as the triumph, the achieved sense of life) and "La Traviata Overture" (as the way there).

To be used as dance numbers:

"La Traviata Overture": the first dance described—the dance of rising, without ever moving from one spot—done by means of her arms and body—ending on "Dominique's statue" posture, as "higher than raised arms," as the achieved, as the total surrender to a vision and, simultaneously, "This is I." (The open, the naked, the "without armor.") (Possibly, her first meeting with him.)

"Will o' the Wisp": the triumph—the tap dance and ballet combined—my total sense of life. (Probably, danced in a low-grade dive, with Lorne present. Possibly, projected as a dance, with him, much earlier, as his sense of life, too; thus, a crucial turning point in his realization of the way he is going, the wrong distance he has traveled.)

"Destiny Valse": done at the worst time of her break with him— danced alone, projecting his presence.

Actually, I would love to see these things choreographed.

Michael

[BAMF]

Thanks for those, Michael.

I'm not saying I don't like sports, I like to play tennis myself. But watching sports, no thanks...

Okay, then why don't you like to watch sports?

[Dragonfly]

Okay, then why don't you like to watch sports?

There are much more interesting things to do.

[BAMF]

Ah. I guess I just assumed you had some kind of deep seated hatred for sports since you said that AR had risen in your esteem.

[Matus1976]

Okay, then why don't you like to watch sports?

There are much more interesting things to do.

My sentinments as well, people who get obsessed about sports seem to be seaking a cause to champion, hey, get a real cause. Sports can be nice when you see the potential physical capacity of people and the abilities that elaborate and complex training and practice can bring out, but to get obsessed about one team or another is pretty lame and just residual tribalism. There are always much more productive ways to be spending your time than passively watching something.

[Matus1976]

In general, men like watching mindless churning sports events (and action-adventure movies) that don't ultimately go anywhere, while women like mindless churning soap operas and Harlequin romance novels that don't ultimately go anywhere. B) I wonder if AR liked soap operas?

As far as silly disingeneous stereotypes go, I particularly liked this one from 'The Mating Habits of the Earth Bound Human'

"Men like movies where many people take a very short time to die (cue explosions and gun fire) women like movies where one person takes a long time to die (cue sad music)"

[BaalChatzaf]

Okay, then why don't you like to watch sports?

There are much more interesting things to do.

Participating is much more interesting than watching. I would rather play baseball than watch a game on t.v..

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Wrighty]

If you can play - do it, because injury and age will always reach up and snatch away that pleasure and then there is a void to fill.

Not playing but watching a live event is next best because it is just that - an event - and there is more to it than just "watching sport".

Not playing but watching sport on tv instead is a bit sacreligious - and you can always video and watch after you've played something yourself.

If you can't play then watching live or on tv is surely an admirable substitute (and heaps better than watching soaps!).

At my age I play what sport I can - and I coach sport - and I watch sport. Watching helps the coaching knowledge, and the playing. Fortunately for me now, my job is also my pleasure and my lifetime hobby.

Intrinsically though, there is NO substitute for playing.

[Barbara Branden]

]Barbara, When did Miss Rand get a television set? Did she have one when she was working on Atlas?

Chris, she didn't have a television set when she lived in Los Angeles, where Nathaniel and I met her. She bought one when we all moved to New York in the early 50s -- so she did have it through the writing of the last one-third or so of Atlas. It was a small, unreliable black and white television, with a picture that tended to swim out of focus or vanish into snow now and then, and there was very litttle to watch. We watched rarely, mostly documentaries like the McCarthy trials and the few other current events that were televised. And we religiously watched Star Trek and Dragnet once they began.

Barbara

[BAMF]

Okay, then why don't you like to watch sports?

There are much more interesting things to do.

Participating is much more interesting than watching. I would rather play baseball than watch a game on t.v..

Ba'al Chatzaf

I agree. MUCH more fun to play, but I also enjoy watching from time to time (though really very rarely), especially football. I absolutely LOVE going to football games, too.

I haven't played many sports in a few years. I used to play football at recess all the time. I was a badass girl. Those were the days.

[Chris Grieb]

Barbara;

Why did she never comment on Star Trek?

She seem to only written on The Untouchables, The Man From Uncle, and Perry Mason.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

A Rose Garden of Rand Quotes and Rand-Info on Sports

The role of sports in Rand’s writing is much richer than it seems at first. She certainly was aware of the importance of sports in the world she lived in and often mentioned different sports as if she highly approved of them, although she never comes off as a fan. The only sport she actually detested was chess—which is mental not athletic—and it was the only sport about which she wrote a full article. Her description of the tennis game between Dagny and Francisco is pretty exciting in sexual overtones (in the manner of her particular brand of rough sex).

Sports in general

The Journals of Ayn Rand, p. 45 (circa February 1928)

(Notes on Danny Renahan, hero of unwritten novel, The Little Street)

He doesn't take part in any sports, that is, any teamwork.

The Journals of Ayn Rand, pp. 108-109 (February 22, 1937)

(Notes on Ellsworth Toohey)

His passively retentive memory has always made him a good scholar; he was a brilliant pupil in school the kind who always knew his lessons, had the neatest copy-books, preferred his homework to athletic games (in which he would have no chance), wore glasses, often had head-colds, and his mother had to watch his diet.

The Fountainhead, p. 296

(Description of Toohey’s growing up)

At school he was a model pupil. He always knew his lessons, had the neatest copybooks, the cleanest fingernails, loved Sunday school and preferred reading to athletic games, in which he had no chance.

. . .

He could not take part in ball games, and was the only child who boasted about it, instead of feeling frustrated or ashamed like the other boys with substandard bodies. He considered athletics vulgar and said so; the brain, he said, was mightier than the brawn; he meant it.

The Voice of Reason, “Apollo 11,” p. 170 (originally published in The Objectivist, September 1969)

A competition presupposes some basic principles held in common by all the competitors, such as the rules of the game in athletics, or the functions of the free market in business.

Badminton

The Fountainhead, p. 261

(Keating)

Then Roark began to speak about the future building, but Joel Sutton looked up at him, astonished and hurt. Joel Sutton had not come here to talk about buildings; parties were given for the purpose of enjoying oneself, and what greater joy could there be but to forget the important things of one's life? So Joel Sutton talked about badminton; that was his hobby; it was a patrician hobby, he explained, he was not being common like other men who wasted time on golf. Roark listened politely. He had nothing to say.

"You do play badminton, don't you?" Joel Sutton asked suddenly.

"No," said Roark.

. . .

(Some more references to badminton follow, then Keating’s advice.)

“I'd have sworn I'd played badminton since I was two years old and how it's the game of kings and earls and it takes a soul of rare distinction to appreciate it and by the time he'd put me to the test I'd have made it my business to play like an earl, too.”

Baseball

The Fountainhead, p. 414

(Description of Wynand)

He hired a sensitive poet to cover baseball games.

Atlas Shrugged, p. 91

(Description of Francisco growing up)

When they showed him how to hit a ball with a bat, a game he had never played before, he watched them for a few minutes, then said, "I think I get the idea. Let me try." He took the bat and sent the ball flying over a line of oak trees far at the end of the field.

The Objectivist Newsletter, Vol. 1 No. 7, July, 1962, "Account Overdrawn" (This is not really Rand writing about baseball. She is quoting Reston from a New York Times article.)

In style, content and implication, one of the most curious comments was made by James Reston (The New York Times, June 3, 1962). In a gentle, swimmy mixture of pleas and threats, he wrote the following: "At least a moratorium on ugly charges of bad faith is indicated … the psychological slump at the moment, therefore, is probably more important than the stock market slump—in fact, it is probably responsible for the stock market slump … If you go on telling the Yankees they are a lousy ball team you can soon land them in the second division, and if you go on insisting that Kennedy is anti-business the darned thing could easily happen, to the detriment of everybody."

The Voice of Reason, “Altruism as Appeasement,” pp. 33-34 (originally published in The Objectivist, January 1966)

His first year in college is, usually, his psychological killer. He had expected college to be a citadel of the intellect where he would find answers, knowledge, meaning, and, above all, some companions to share his interest in ideas. He finds none of it. One or two teachers may live up to his hope (though they are growing rarer year by year). But as to intellectual companionship, he finds the same gang he had met in kindergarten, in playgrounds, and in vacant lots: a leering, screeching, aggressively mindless gang playing the same games, with a latinized jargon replacing the mud pies and baseball bats.

Boxing

The Fountainhead, p. 188

( Keating on winning Cosmo-Slotnick competition)

He was photographed with a famous prize-fighter, under the caption: "Champions."

The Fountainhead, p. 311

(Description of Kent Lansing)

Late in June a man named Kent Lansing came to see Roark. He was forty years old, he was dressed like a fashion plate and looked like a prize fighter, though he was not burly, muscular or tough: he was thin and angular. He merely made one think of a boxer and of other things that did not fit his appearance: of a battering ram, of a tank, of a submarine torpedo.

Basketball

I tried to find a quote of something that is in my memory about this. I remember reading Rand or hearing her during a Q&A state that basketball was invented to serve the taller and healthier people in the Midwest (or maybe Texas) who were fed better because of the blessings of capitalism. If I find this quote, I will add it.

Chess

The Journals of Ayn Rand, p. 108-109 (May 13, 1955)

(Notes on Psychological ‘Epistemology’”)

Is the question of "certainty" related to the question of "values"? My lead here is the fact that when I attempt to calculate a chess game my mind gives up on a very violent feeling of "What's the use?"

In Ayn Rand Answers: The Best of her Q&A , pp. 170-173, there are three questions about chess that Rand was asked. In general, she considered it unrewarded mental effort and an escapist activity, pointing to the childishness of grand-masters like Bobby Fisher as proof that experts were unable to use this mental skill in other areas of life. I am giving only the first question below (fair use). We once had a discussion about this on OL here: Chess. I believe Rand’s attitude toward chess provides a key to some of the problems in her writing—something maybe about being the one who sets the rules instead of accepting them. This should be discussed further.

Ayn Rand Answers: The Best of her Q&A , pp. 170-171, an outtake from her 1969 nonfiction writing course.

Question: Do you like chess?

AR: I could never play chess. I resent it on principle. It involves too much wasted thinking. Jesse is all “ifs,” and if there’s one thing I cannot do mentally, it’s handle anything more than two “ifs.” In chess, you must consider hundreds of possibilities, it’s all conditional, and I resent that. That is not the method of cognition; reality doesn’t demand that kind of thinking. In cognition, if you define the problem clearly, you really have only one alternative: “It is so” or “It is not so.” There is not a long line of “ifs”—and if your opponent does this, you will do that. I can’t function that way, for all the reasons that make me a good theoretical thinker: it’s a different epistemological base. Chess requires a different mental process—where you’re willing to play with intangibles, and nothing has a firm identity. A isn’t A; every A is conditioned by hundreds of possibilities. That is a different universe.

Observe that chess experts have no idea of anything else. Chess becomes a substitute for philosophy or a profession. It is a way of life. They use their minds to play chess, and are like absentminded professors in everything else. They have no idea about life. In its extreme form, the psycho-epistemology takes over, and incapacitates person for living. I don’t mean you shouldn’t play chess moderately. If you enjoy it, that’s fine. But I don’t think it’s an intellectual game. Chess involves too much effort under conditions that are not the cognitive conditions of reality. It is the deliberate exercise of a mind in a non-A vacuum. That’s my objection to it.

I hear that scientists are trying to get a computer to play chess. If they can do that, then you shouldn’t waste your mind on the game. If this is possible, it justifies my personal theory about chess: computers are wonderful for mechanical, not creative, work.

The Ayn Rand Letter, Vol. 1, No. 25, September 11, 1972, “An Open Letter To Boris Spassky” (This whole article is about chess, but below are three quotes.)

But I watched some of your games, reproduced play by play on television, and found them to be a fascinating demonstration of the enormous complexity of thought and planning required of a chess player—a demonstration of how many considerations he has to bear in mind, how many factors to integrate, how many contingencies to be prepared for, how far ahead to see and plan. It was obvious that you and your opponent had to have an unusual intellectual capacity.

Then I was struck by the realization that the game itself and the players' exercise of mental virtuosity are made possible by the metaphysical absolutism of the reality with which they deal. The game is ruled by the Law of Identity and its corollary, the Law of Causality. Each piece is what it is: a queen is a queen, a bishop is a bishop—and the actions each can perform are determined by its nature: a queen can move any distance in any open line, straight or diagonal, a bishop cannot; a rook can move from one side of the board to the other, a pawn cannot; etc. Their identities and the rules of their movements are immutable—and this enables the player's mind to devise a complex, long-range strategy, so that the game depends on nothing but the power of his (and his opponent's) ingenuity.

. . .

Oh yes, Comrade, chess is an escape—an escape from reality. It is an "out," a kind of "make-work" for a man of higher than average intelligence who was afraid to live, but could not leave his mind unemployed and devoted it to a placebo—thus surrendering to others the living world he had rejected as too hard to understand.

Please do not take this to mean that I object to games as such: games are an important part of man's life, they provide a necessary rest, and chess may do so for men who live under the constant pressure of purposeful work. Besides, some games—such as sports contests, for instance—offer us an opportunity to see certain human skills developed to a level of perfection. But what would you think of a world champion runner who, in real life, moved about in a wheelchair? Or of a champion high jumper who crawled about on all fours? You, the chess professionals, are taken as exponents of the most precious of human skills: intellectual power—yet that power deserts you beyond the confines of the sixty-four squares of a chessboard, leaving you confused, anxious, and helplessly unfocused. Because, you see, the chessboard is not a training ground, but a substitute for reality.

. . .

Unlike algebra, chess does not represent the abstraction—the basic pattern—of mental effort; it represents the opposite: it focuses mental effort on a set of concretes, and demands such complex calculations that a mind has no room for anything else. By creating an illusion of action and struggle, chess reduces the professional player's mind to an uncritical, unvaluing passivity toward life. Chess removes the motor of intellectual effort—the question "What for?"—and leaves a somewhat frightening phenomenon: intellectual effort devoid of purpose.

If—for any number of reasons, psychological or existential—a man comes to believe that the living world is closed to him, that he has nothing to seek or to achieve, that no action is possible, then chess becomes his antidote, the means of drugging his own rebellious mind that refuses fully to believe it and to stand still. This, Comrade, is the reason why chess has always been so popular in your country, before and since its present regime—and why there have not been many American masters. You see, in this country, men are still free to act.

Football

The Letters of Ayn Rand , p. 646-647 (Letter to Pilar and Jose Manuel Capuletti, August 25, 1967)

Mary Ann [sures, a mutual friend and art historian] has just returned from Europe and gave us a chance to see the paintings which she and others bought from you. These paintings are magnificent. I have the impression that you are growing with every canvas: there is a greater maturity and control in these paintings and a much more complex composition. I'm sorry that your admirers in New York will not have a chance to see those football pictures*—and I hope that you will have more of them in your next show here.

* Capuletti painted at least two "football pictures," one of New York Giants quarterback Y. A. Tittle and one of the Baltimore Colts' passing combination of Johnny Unitas to Raymond Berry.

The Art of Fiction, 7 – “Characterization,” p. 82.

An intelligent young man with a purpose is, in his late teens and early twenties, particularly solemn and formal. He might be shy and unable to express himself fully, but then, the shyer and more uncertain he is, the more formal he will be. If such a young man approaches someone he admires in his profession, he does not come across like a college football player, saying: "Oh, gee, honest." Had Lewis genuinely been watching reality, he would have presented Arrowsmith in any way but this.

Golf and other sports

The Fountainhead, p. 138

(Description of Alvah Scarret)

Alvah Scarret was a bachelor, had made two millions dollars, played golf expertly and was editor-in-chief of the Wynand papers.

The Fountainhead, p. 423

(Conversation between Peter Keating and Dominique—she speaks first)

"Will you like to take up some sport?"

"Yes, I'll like that."

"Which one?"

"I think I'll do better with my golf. You know, belonging to a country club right where you're one of the leading citizens in the community is different from occasional week ends. And the people you meet are different. Much higher class. And the contacts you make..." He caught himself, and added angrily: "Also, I'll take up horseback riding."

"I like horseback riding. Do you?"

"I've never had much time for it. Well, it does shake your insides unmercifully. But who the hell is Gordon Prescott to think he's the only he-man on earth and plaster his photo in riding clothes right in his reception room?"

Atlas Shrugged, p. 796

(Bar discussion with James Taggart and cronies)

It had been followed by a small cocktail party in a private room of the bar built like a cellar on the roof of a skyscraper, an informal party given by him, James Taggart, for the directors of a recently formed company. The Interneighborly Amity and Development Corporation, of which Orren Boyle was president and a slender, graceful, overactive man from Chile was treasurer, a man whose name was Señor Mario Martinez, but whom Taggart was tempted, by some resemblance of spirit, to call Señor Cuffy Meigs. Here they had talked about golf, horse races, boat races, automobiles and women.

Tennis

Atlas Shrugged, pp. 102-103

(Dagny and Francisco)

She saw Francisco's mocking glance again, across the net of a tennis court. She did not remember the beginning of that game; they had often played tennis together and he had always won. She did not know at what moment she decided that she would win, this time. When she became aware of it, it was no longer a decision or a wish, but a quiet fury rising within her. She did not know why she had to win; she did not know why it seemed so crucially, urgently necessary; she knew only that she had to and that she would.

It seemed easy to play; it was as if her will had vanished and someone's power were playing for her. She watched Francisco's figure—a tall, swift figure, the suntan of his arms stressed by his short white shirt sleeves. She felt an arrogant pleasure in seeing the skill of his movements, because this was the thing which she would beat, so that his every expert gesture became her victory, and the brilliant competence of his body became the triumph of hers.

She felt the rising pain of exhaustion—not knowing that it was pain, feeling it only in sudden stabs that made her aware of some part of her body for an instant, to be forgotten in the next: her arm socket—her shoulder blades—her hips, with the white shorts sticking to her skin—the muscles of her legs, when she leaped to meet the ball, but did not remember whether she came down to touch the ground again—her eyelids, when the sky went dark red and the ball came at her through the darkness like a whirling white flame—the thin, hot wire that shot from her ankle, up her back, and went on shooting straight across the air, driving the ball at Francisco's figure.… She felt an exultant pleasure—because every stab of pain begun in her body had to end in his, because he was being exhausted as she was—what she did to herself, she was doing it also to him—this was what he felt—this was what she drove him to—it was not her pain that she felt or her body, but his.

In the moments when she saw his face, she saw that he was laughing. He was looking at her as if he understood. He was playing, not to win, but to make it harder for her—sending his shots wild to make her run—losing points to see her twist her body in an agonizing backhand—standing still, letting her think he would miss, only to let his arm shoot out casually at the last moment and send the ball back with such force that she knew she would miss it. She felt as if she could not move again, not ever—and it was strange to find herself landing suddenly at the other side of the court, smashing the ball in time, smashing it as if she wished it to burst to pieces, as if she wished it were Francisco's face.

Just once more, she thought, even if the next one would crack the bones of her arm… Just once more, even if the air which she forced down in gasps past her tight, swollen throat, would be stopped altogether … Then she felt nothing, no pain, no muscles, only the thought that she had to beat him, to see him exhausted, to see him collapse, and then she would be free to die in the next moment.

She won. Perhaps it was his laughing that made him lose, for once. He walked to the net, while she stood still, and threw his racket across, at her feet, as if knowing that this was what she wanted. He walked out of the court and fell down on the grass of the lawn, collapsing, his head on his arm.

She approached him slowly. She stood over him, looking down at his body stretched at her feet, looking at his sweat-drenched shirt and the strands of his hair spilled across his arm. He raised his head. His glance moved slowly up the line of her legs, to her shorts, to her blouse, to her eyes. It was a mocking glance that seemed to see straight through her clothes and through her mind. And it seemed to say that he had won.

Speedboat

Atlas Shrugged, pp. 91-92

(Description of Francisco growing up)

When Jim was given a motorboat for his birthday, they all stood on the river landing, watching the lesson, while an instructor showed Jim how to run it. None of them had ever driven a motorboat before. The sparkling white craft, shaped like a bullet, kept staggering clumsily across the water, its wake a long record of shivering, its motor choking with hiccoughs, while the instructor, seated beside him, kept seizing the wheel out of Jim's hands. For no apparent reason, Jim raised his head suddenly and yelled at Francisco, "Do you think you can do it any better?"

"I can do it."

"Try it!"

When the boat came back and its two occupants stepped out, Francisco slipped behind the wheel. "Wait a moment," he said to the instructor, who remained on the landing. "Let me take a look at this." Then, before the instructor had time to move, the boat shot out to the middle of the river, as if fired from a gun. It was streaking away before they grasped what they were seeing. As it went shrinking into the distance and sunlight, Dagny's picture of it was three straight lines: its wake, the long shriek of its motor, and the aim of the driver at its wheel.

She noticed the strange expression of her father's face as he looked at the vanishing speedboat.

Volleyball

The Ayn Rand Letter, Vol. 1, No. 11, February 28, 1972, “. . . And The Response--Part II” (This is not really Rand writing about volleyball. She is quoting Skinner from Walden Two as mentioned in a Time magazine story.)

The third passage is about Twin Oaks, a real-life commune founded on a farm in Virginia, and "governed by Skinner's laws of social engineering." "Private property is forbidden, except for such things as books and clothing...No one is allowed to boast of individual accomplishments...What is considered appropriate behavior—cooperating, showing affection, turning the other cheek and working diligently—is, on the other hand, applauded, or 'reinforced,' by the group." "The favorite sports are 'cooperation volleyball' and skinny-dipping in the South Anna River—false modesty is another of the sins that are not reinforced—and there is plenty of folk singing and dancing."

Some Peikoff OPAR quotes for good measure (since he probably adopted his basic attitudes from Rand)

OPAR, p. 216

In a biological context, suffering "only a little damage" is comparable to taking "only a little cyanide" or playing "only an occasional game of Russian roulette."

(OK. I know. Russian roulette is not really a sport. But, I couldn't resist including it...)

OPAR, p. 301

Similarly, one cannot substitute recreation—games, sports, travel, hobbies, reading murder mysteries, watching TV, going shopping, going to the beach, and the like—for work. Recreation presupposes creation. Leisure activities are a form of rest and presuppose that which one is resting from; they have value only as relaxation and reward after the performance of work. A life devoted primarily to recreation is one lived with one's mind on hold, in disconnected snatches according to the spur of the moment—a game, a trip, a show, a purchase—with no long-range goal and no field for intellectual activity. This amounts to the stagnant, pointless life of a playboy. Any authentic human need, recreation included, can serve as the base of a legitimate profession. Ayn Rand is not, therefore, casting any aspersion on professional athletes, entertainers, or stamp dealers. The point is that all such fields qualify as work only if a man pursues them as work. Work involves continuity and disciplined creativity.

OPAR, p. 17

By the same token, the causal link does not relate two actions. Since the Renaissance, it has been common for philosophers to speak as though actions directly cause other actions, bypassing entities altogether. For example, the motion of one billiard ball striking a second is commonly said to be the cause of the motion of the second, the implication being that we can dispense with the balls; motions by themselves become the cause of other motions. This idea is senseless. Motions do not act, they are actions. It is entities which act—and cause. Speaking literally, it is not the motion of a billiard ball which produces effects; it is the billiard ball, the entity, which does so by a certain means. If one doubts this, one need merely substitute an egg or soap bubble with the same velocity for the billiard ball; the effects will be quite different.

OPAR, p. 68

The law of causality affirms a necessary connection between entities and their actions. It does not, however, specify any particular kind of entity or of action. The law does not say that only mechanistic relationships can occur, the kind that apply when one billiard ball strikes another; this is one common form of causation, but it does not preempt the field.

General

In The Fountainhead, Peter Keating was captain of the track team, Roark started the book by swimming and swam on a yacht trip with Wynand, and Dominique met Roark while horseback riding. Rand mentioned that scientists enjoyed skiing in her notes to a film about the atom bomb. Rand’s characters often raced against each other, either literally or metaphorically and her nonfiction writing constantly used racing to mean competition. Masculinity was often denoted with the term “athletic.”

Peripherally, Rand’s heroines often wore sports coats. In using the term “game” or “games,” instead of sports, Rand most often meant dishonest manipulations of people seeking unearned benefits or sinister results. She also mentioned “con games” a few times. Sometimes she used “game” to mean a trifling pastime, especially when bashing an intellectual attitude she did not approve of.

This is by far an incomplete listing, but it should give an overview of Rand’s attitude toward sports.

Michael

[Chris Grieb]

Michael,

I had forgotten the letter about the football pictures. The Unitas to Moore picture was owned by someone here in the DC area. I have seen that picture.