Barbara Branden's 50th anniversary tribute to "Atlas"

[Newberry]

1. Out of the many thousands of achievers who responded positively to Atlas Shrugged, it is a sad fact, and terribly painful to a beleaguered Ayn Rand, that none of them spoke out publicly to defend it;

2. Some of those who did not speak out had justifiable reasons for their silence, others had only partly jutifiiable reasons, many were silent out of weakness and cowardice.

Barbara

This is an interesting psychological puzzle--about the people that didn't speak up. I wonder if it was due to a lack of romanticism in our culture? You can see with so many artists that they hold themselves back from the challenge of being romanticists--its has if the last fragment of their cynicism wins when push comes to shove. I wonder if that is the same for the achievers--98% of their souls reacted positively to Rand but the 2% won out for not coming out of the closet. Didn't Rand make a comment on how grudgingly men hold on to their vices and how easily they let go their virtues?

Michael

[Alfonso Jones]

1. Out of the many thousands of achievers who responded positively to Atlas Shrugged, it is a sad fact, and terribly painful to a beleaguered Ayn Rand, that none of them spoke out publicly to defend it;

2. Some of those who did not speak out had justifiable reasons for their silence, others had only partly jutifiiable reasons, many were silent out of weakness and cowardice.

Barbara

This is an interesting psychological puzzle--about the people that didn't speak up. I wonder if it was due to a lack of romanticism in our culture? You can see with so many artists that they hold themselves back from the challenge of being romanticists--its has if the last fragment of their cynicism wins when push comes to shove. I wonder if that is the same for the achievers--98% of their souls reacted positively to Rand but the 2% won out for not coming out of the closet. Didn't Rand make a comment on how grudgingly men hold on to their vices and how easily they let go their virtues?

Michael

I think that if those with personal, first-hand memories of Rand and the way she acted back around this time will probably find the following to make sense:

Rand hardly suggested that she was hoping for praise, response, etc... in her public statements. She exuded confidence and self-reliance. I can recall thinking: If I praise this woman to her face, she may regard the praise as either inadequate or unneeded. Inadequate - possibly because she thought the evaluation implicit in the praise not to be sufficiently high. Unneeded - because she presented herself as not needing praise.

Remember, from the original Atlas Shrugged (still in the "About the Author" page): "I had a difficult struggle, earning my living at odd jobs, until I could make a financial success of my writing. No one helped me, nor did I think at any time that it was anyone's duty to help me."

LATER written statements fit well with this overall pattern.

However, I think what is most telling was written by rand much later, in May 1968, in the 25th Anniversary Edition to The Fountainhead (Introduction): "My attitude toward my writing is best expressed by a statement of Victor Hugo: 'If a writer wrote merely for his time, I would have to break my pen and throw it away.'"

What that communicates to me is Rand's conviction that she was writing with a broad audience in mind - the present generation (at publication) and the future generations. And that she intended to reach them. She did so with eloquence and power. It is sad that those she viewed as fellow first-rate minds did not publicly support her.

I wish Rand had gotten that public support. Just as I wish she could have seen the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union. To have read her commenting on those events, or to have seen her speak on that - would have been glorious!

Alfonso

Edited for two minor typographical mistakes

Edited December 2, 2007 by Alfonso

[Chris Grieb]

1. Out of the many thousands of achievers who responded positively to Atlas Shrugged, it is a sad fact, and terribly painful to a beleaguered Ayn Rand, that none of them spoke out publicly to defend it;

2. Some of those who did not speak out had justifiable reasons for their silence, others had only partly jutifiiable reasons, many were silent out of weakness and cowardice.

Barbara

This is an interesting psychological puzzle--about the people that didn't speak up. I wonder if it was due to a lack of romanticism in our culture? You can see with so many artists that they hold themselves back from the challenge of being romanticists--its has if the last fragment of their cynicism wins when push comes to shove. I wonder if that is the same for the achievers--98% of their souls reacted positively to Rand but the 2% won out for not coming out of the closet. Didn't Rand make a comment on how grudgingly men hold on to their vices and how easily they let go their virtues?

Michael

I think that if those with personal, first-hand memories of Rand and the way she acted back around this time will probably find the following to make sense:

Rand hardly suggested that she was hoping for praise, response, etc... in her public statements. She exuded confidence and self-reliance. I can recall thinking: If I praise this woman to her face, she may regard the praise as either inadequate or unneeded. Inadequate - possibly because she thought the evaluation implicit in the praise not to be sufficiently high. Unneeded - because she presented herself as not needing praise.

Remember, from the original Atlas Shrugged (still in the "About the Author" page): "I had a difficult struggle, earning my living at odd jobs, until I could make a financial success of my writing. No one helped me, nor did I think at any time that it was anyone's duty to help me."

LATER written statements fit well with this overall pattern.

However, I think what is most telling was written by rand much later, in May 1968, in the 25th Anniversary Edition to The Fountainhead (Introduction): "My attitude toward my writing is best expressed by a statement of Victor Hugo: 'If a writer wrote merely for his time, I would have to break my pen and throw it away.'"

What that communicates to me is Rand's conviction that she was writing with a broad audience in mind - the present generation (at publication) and the future generations. And that she intended to reach them. She did so with eloquence and power. It is sad that those she viewed as fellow first-rate minds did not publicly support her.

I wish Rand had gotten that public support. Just as I wish she could have seen the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union. To have read her commenting on those events, or to have seen her speak on that - would have been glorious!

Alfonso

Edited for two minor typographical mistakes

Alfonso; I wonder if Rand could have appreciated the Berlin Wall fall and the collapse of the USSR. I say this looking at some of Peikoff's statements at the time.

[Alfonso Jones]

1. Out of the many thousands of achievers who responded positively to Atlas Shrugged, it is a sad fact, and terribly painful to a beleaguered Ayn Rand, that none of them spoke out publicly to defend it;

2. Some of those who did not speak out had justifiable reasons for their silence, others had only partly jutifiiable reasons, many were silent out of weakness and cowardice.

Barbara

This is an interesting psychological puzzle--about the people that didn't speak up. I wonder if it was due to a lack of romanticism in our culture? You can see with so many artists that they hold themselves back from the challenge of being romanticists--its has if the last fragment of their cynicism wins when push comes to shove. I wonder if that is the same for the achievers--98% of their souls reacted positively to Rand but the 2% won out for not coming out of the closet. Didn't Rand make a comment on how grudgingly men hold on to their vices and how easily they let go their virtues?

Michael

I think that if those with personal, first-hand memories of Rand and the way she acted back around this time will probably find the following to make sense:

Rand hardly suggested that she was hoping for praise, response, etc... in her public statements. She exuded confidence and self-reliance. I can recall thinking: If I praise this woman to her face, she may regard the praise as either inadequate or unneeded. Inadequate - possibly because she thought the evaluation implicit in the praise not to be sufficiently high. Unneeded - because she presented herself as not needing praise.

Remember, from the original Atlas Shrugged (still in the "About the Author" page): "I had a difficult struggle, earning my living at odd jobs, until I could make a financial success of my writing. No one helped me, nor did I think at any time that it was anyone's duty to help me."

LATER written statements fit well with this overall pattern.

However, I think what is most telling was written by rand much later, in May 1968, in the 25th Anniversary Edition to The Fountainhead (Introduction): "My attitude toward my writing is best expressed by a statement of Victor Hugo: 'If a writer wrote merely for his time, I would have to break my pen and throw it away.'"

What that communicates to me is Rand's conviction that she was writing with a broad audience in mind - the present generation (at publication) and the future generations. And that she intended to reach them. She did so with eloquence and power. It is sad that those she viewed as fellow first-rate minds did not publicly support her.

I wish Rand had gotten that public support. Just as I wish she could have seen the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union. To have read her commenting on those events, or to have seen her speak on that - would have been glorious!

Alfonso

Edited for two minor typographical mistakes

Alfonso; I wonder if Rand could have appreciated the Berlin Wall fall and the collapse of the USSR. I say this looking at some of Peikoff's statements at the time.

I understand your thoughts there. But I would NEVER attempt to extrapolate Rand's thought from the statements of Peikoff. Rather see what either of the Brandens said - I think both of them had a far superior grasp of Rand's thought than Peikoff has ever demonstrated.

Alfonso

[Dragonfly]

Please don't quote complete messages with all those nested quotes! It isn't that difficult to select the relevant parts.

[Jonathan]

I see Ayn Rand as being very similar to people like Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh. They've all said and written some very inspirational and powerful things, and they've accomplished a lot in their chosen professions, but they've also said some very stupid and hateful things which could make it difficult for someone to want to publicly support or defend them without hesitation or qualification. I could see where a public figure might privately praise any of them for specific accomplishments or views, but would not want to link his own PR to theirs. If, for example, a steel or plastics titan had a serious interest in culture and politics, I could understand where he wouldn't want to be publicly associated with certain angry psychological or moral judgments of others based on issues like, say, homosexuality, women's rights, evolution or the enjoyment of Beethoven's music.

J

[James Heaps-Nelson]

I see Ayn Rand as being very similar to people like Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh. They've all said and written some very inspirational and powerful things, and they've accomplished a lot in their chosen professions, but they've also said some very stupid and hateful things which could make it difficult for someone to want to publicly support or defend them without hesitation or qualification. I could see where a public figure might privately praise any of them for specific accomplishments or views, but would not want to link his own PR to theirs. If, for example, a steel or plastics titan had a serious interest in culture and politics, I could understand where he wouldn't want to be publicly associated with certain angry psychological or moral judgments of others based on issues like, say, homosexuality, women's rights, evolution or the enjoyment of Beethoven's music.

J

No, Jonathan. I think it's ridiculous to mention Ayn Rand in the same breath as Rush Limbaugh or Ann Coulter. Also, I don't remember Rand mentioning anything about any of the topics you mention in Atlas Shrugged. The real reasons socially prominent people didn't stand up to defend Atlas was social conformity and not wanting to make waves. Those timid souls have faded into oblivion and most people today wouldn't even recognize their names.

Jim

[Ellen Stuttle]

LP, in my view, exhibits considerable arrogance in altering Rand's writings, often without so much as a footnote explaining the alteration and preserving the original version. Clearly, his behavior shows that he believes his judgment to be superior to Rand's. (I have never seen him claim in writing, or heard of him claim, that Rand directed the airbrushing to happen after her death.)

I know of two cases -- there might be others I'm not aware of -- where a reference to Nathaniel Branden and a definition quoted from him was deleted from an AR article while she was still alive:

The definition of "stolen concept" quoted from Nathaniel was deleted after the break from new printings of the original ITOE separate monograph.

At least as of the 1971 NAL (Signet) paperback of The Romantic Manifesto a definition of "psycho-epistemology" quoted from Nathaniel was deleted from "The Psycho-Epistemology of Art." (That might have been justified on the basis of improving the definition. A clearer definition was inserted into the text.)

I'm pretty sure the footnote crediting Nathaniel with the monikers "Attila" and "the Witch Doctor" was deleted from subsequent printings of For the New Intellectual while she was still alive. (The footnote read: "I am indebted to Nathaniel Branden for many valuable observations on this subject and for his eloquent designation of the two archetypes, which I shall use hereafter: Attila and the Witch Doctor.")

[EDIT: Scratch that one. See Neil's post below.]

Also, I think it's likely she knew that Harry Binswanger was intending not to include any quotes from Nathaniel, Barbara and others in the Lexicon.

Harry writes in his "Editor's Preface":

Lexicon, pg. ix-x

I first proposed this idea to Ayn Rand in 1977. She was originally somewhat skeptical about its feasibility, being concerned as to whether her writings would lend themselves to the kind of excerpting that would be required. To sell her on the project, I wrote a detail prospectus of the book and worked up a sample--the entries beginning with the letter "N." She was favorably impressed with the results and gave me permission to go ahead. She commented extensively on several dozen entries, helping me to define appropriate standards for excerpting and topic selection.

As the work progressed, Miss Rand became increasingly enthusiastic about the project. One value of the book had special meaning to her: it eliminates any shred of excuse (if ever there had been one) for the continual gross misrepresentation of her philosophy at the hands of hostile commentators. As she quipped to me, "People will be able to look up BREAKFAST and see that I did not advocate eating babies for breakfast."

Miss Rand had intended to read over the entire book, but after completing the letter "A" I had to shelve the project in order to found and edit The Objectivist Forum, and did not resume work on it until two years after her death. Consequently, she read only about 10 percent of the material.

I have endeavored to cull from the Objectivist corpus all the significant topics in philosophy and closely allied fields, such as psychology, economics, and intellectual history. The Lexicon, however, does not cover Ayn Rand's fiction writings, except for those philosophical passages from her novels that were reprinted in her book For the New Intellectual. Material by authors other than Miss Rand is included only if she had given it an explicit public endorsement--as with Leonard Peikoff's book The Ominous Parallels and his lecture course "The Philosophy of Objectivism--or if it was originally published under her editorship in The Objectivist Newsletter, The Objectivist, or The Ayn Rand Letter. I have also made use of four Objectivist Forum articles that Miss Rand read and approved.

.

Clearly, in leaving out quotes from Nathaniel, Harry left out important material pertaining to psychology originally sanctioned by Rand as part of the Objectivist corpus. I expect she knew he was going to do this, though obviously he wasn't going to say in so many words either that he was doing it or that she knew he was doing it if she knew.

As to her giving any specific permission to Leonard Peikoff's airbrushing, if you mean in textual material, it looks as if he had plausible precedent based on her own deletions. If you're including the wider ARI attempt to downplay as much as possible the role of NBI and the Brandens in Rand's history, she wouldn't have sanctioned the forming of ARI, as Barbara has discussed, so that question is moot. ;-)

Ellen

___

Edited December 3, 2007 by Ellen Stuttle

[Neil Parille]

Ellen,

My copy of FTNI, which was purchased in the last few years, still has the NB footnote. (I gather it has been deleted from The Ayn Rand Reader).

Neil

[Jonathan]

No, Jonathan. I think it's ridiculous to mention Ayn Rand in the same breath as Rush Limbaugh or Ann Coulter.

I think that Rand was a deeper and more radical thinker than Coulter or Limbaugh, but I think she has had less cultural influence than them. I'd probably rate Limbaugh as being more successful in his career than Rand was in hers. Limbaugh revolutionized his medium.

Also, I don't remember Rand mentioning anything about any of the topics you mention in Atlas Shrugged.

It's not relevant that she didn't mention those topics in Atlas Shrugged. People who didn't publicly praise or defend Atlas may have wanted to avoid being publicly associated with Rand for any number of legitimate reasons, including because of things she wrote or said outside of her novels. They may have even disliked what they knew about some of the more irrationally judgmental or controlling aspects of her personality.

Ann Coulter didn't mention her loopy views on religion and evolution the last few times that I saw her on Hannity and Colmes, and even though she offered potent, entertaining attacks on leftist ideas, I wouldn't be looking for opportunities to publicly defend such performances because I'm aware of the stupid things she has said elsewhere or at other times.

The real reasons socially prominent people didn't stand up to defend Atlas was social conformity and not wanting to make waves. Those timid souls have faded into oblivion and most people today wouldn't even recognize their names.

Really? Would you mind naming those names and giving details about how you've learned about their true motives?

J

[James Heaps-Nelson]

No, Jonathan. I think it's ridiculous to mention Ayn Rand in the same breath as Rush Limbaugh or Ann Coulter.

I think that Rand was a deeper and more radical thinker than Coulter or Limbaugh, but I think she has had less cultural influence than them. I'd probably rate Limbaugh as being more successful in his career than Rand was in hers. Limbaugh revolutionized his medium.

Also, I don't remember Rand mentioning anything about any of the topics you mention in Atlas Shrugged.

It's not relevant that she didn't mention those topics in Atlas Shrugged. People who didn't publicly praise or defend Atlas may have wanted to avoid being publicly associated with Rand for any number of legitimate reasons, including because of things she wrote or said outside of her novels. They may have even disliked what they knew about some of the more irrationally judgmental or controlling aspects of her personality.

Ann Coulter didn't mention her loopy views on religion and evolution the last few times that I saw her on Hannity and Colmes, and even though she offered potent, entertaining attacks on leftist ideas, I wouldn't be looking for opportunities to publicly defend such performances because I'm aware of the stupid things she has said elsewhere or at other times.

The real reasons socially prominent people didn't stand up to defend Atlas was social conformity and not wanting to make waves. Those timid souls have faded into oblivion and most people today wouldn't even recognize their names.

Really? Would you mind naming those names and giving details about how you've learned about their true motives?

J

Jonathan,

Can you name any intellectual from the late 1950's Right beyond Rand antagonist William Buckley that has any impact now? I think that most people on the right reading Rand simply preferred to stay in the comfortable confines of religious conservativism. If not, they could have articulated what they did think after Atlas with or without Rand.

Jim

Edit-- Yes, Ba'al there were exceptions such as Robert Heinlein. I'm sure others will come to mind as I think, but it's a tiny number.

Edited December 3, 2007 by James Heaps-Nelson

[Ellen Stuttle]

Neil,

Thanks for the correction re the FTNI footnote referencing NB. (See post #159.) I added an edit to my post #158.

Ellen

___

[Ellen Stuttle]

The real reasons socially prominent people didn't stand up to defend Atlas was social conformity and not wanting to make waves. Those timid souls have faded into oblivion and most people today wouldn't even recognize their names.

Really? Would you mind naming those names and giving details about how you've learned about their true motives?

J

Jonathan,

Can you name any intellectual from the late 1950's Right beyond Rand antagonist William Buckley that has any impact now? I think that most people on the right reading Rand simply preferred to stay in the comfortable confines of religious conservativism. If not, they could have articulated what they did think after Atlas with or without Rand.

Jim, first you confidently state the "real reasons" "socially prominent people didn't stand up to defend Atlas," and then, when challenged to name any of those people and say how you know the true status of their motives, you indicate that you don't even know who any of the specific persons were. So where do you get a basis for your certainty about their motives? (And if I recall correctly, one of your criticisms of Passion is Barbara's filling in of motives; yet she was filling in with a person she knew well, whereas you're making a blanket mind-reading statement about persons even whose identities you don't know!)

Ellen

___

[Roger Bissell]

In 1989, in The Academy of Management Review, ARI spokesman Edwin A. Locke wrote:

Ayn Rand's intellectual heir, Leonard Peikoff, wrote that "to create philosophical revolution is an extraordinarily rare achievement. To create a great work of art is almost as rare. To do both in the same work is a feat without precedent, yet that is what Ayn Rand has done in

Atlas Shrugged

" (1982, p. 2)

Whatever Locke's motive was for this particular choice of words in referring to Peikoff, it is clear -- is it not? -- that he is espousing the standard ARI line in re Peikoff and "intellectual heir" status. Whether or not Rand would have approved, it seems that his having assumed that mantle, and his being acknowledged as such by the ARI Inner Circle, is a fait accompli.

David Kelley wrote a book on the "legacy" of Ayn Rand. Perhaps it's time for a book on the "heirs" of Ayn Rand. :-)

REB

[Brant Gaede]

I have a little story about a review of Atlas published in The New Yorker shortly after its publication. I don't know how it reflects on me. I first read Atlas in 1963 at the age of 19. My sister had a copy of the paperback. It took me about five days. I skipped Galt's speech though I read it the second time I read the novel. In 1964 I enlisted in the army. I enlisted instead of facing the very real prospect of being drafted. Enlisting meant I had control of the training I'd receive. This was worth the extra year to me. Because of the four-year enlistment in other services I was essentially sluiced into the army. Mine was a very common story. In relief from military service I read most of the rest of the Objectivist opus in 1965 and subscribed to The Objectivist magazine in 1966. I subscribed on a visit to the New York area to see my parents. I went to NBI personally in full uniform and the lady there at the 120 E. 34th st. address, an apartment actually, who was probably Elaine Kalberman, took down my information. I was now totally seduced into the world of Objectivism even though I could not much participate. There were two attractions I was not consciously aware of: cult and being an intellectual. In regard to the latter, I had always been interested in things as they were and why they were ever since I learned about the atom bomb and then vicariously experienced the Hungarian Revolution. I even had a crude philosophy centered on individual rights although I had never read a word on the subject: What is there about one man (person) in that man that gave him the right to hurt another? What was the difference man to man? Nothing. All he had was force. Ayn Rand turned me into an intellectual.

So I got out of the army in 1967 just in time to go back to school, this time at the University of Arizona, all primed up over not being killed or maimed in Vietnam and FREE of army enslavement and armed with a desire to learn more about Objectivism. The last propelled me back to NYC the following Spring, but first I researched everything I could find out about Ayn Rand using the Reader's Guide to Periodical literature. Thus I found the New Yorker review of Atlas Shrugged. It was a very, very wrong review, vicious actually, in that it focused on all the wrong things, but it was written humorously; I started laughing. I could not stop. My mind was saying one thing and my body would not stop convulsing as long as I read it. I haven't seen that review in nearly 40 years but I don't think I would find it so funny today, except for that quote from Atlas about the billboards, maybe. I think I was reacting in a form of relief--a relief from too much Ayn Rand in my young life. Sometimes when you laugh it hurts. That hurt was there all along waiting to be activated by relief from itself.

Of course, I then got all serious again.

I wondered if I was being desrespectful to my ideas and values. I could not figure out what had actually happened and why and essentially forgot about this until now.

In 1968 The Break provided a different sort of relief. There was no laughter but it was relief nevertheless. It was relief from the cult of Objectivism and Ayn Rand. It hurt like hell. There were those of course who weren't relieved. The irony about "The Collective" is that there was a real collective in the 1960s, much bigger than the inner circle, that was mostly deposed of in 1968, but this is a digression.

I now think that the people of ability and accomplishment who didn't publicly support Ayn Rand were afraid of being laughed at. I wasn't sensitive to this in 1968 for I was no such person nor was I aware in the late 60s what had happened in the late 50s. Ayn Rand's great novel about individualism wasn't Atlas but The Fountainhead. While some derision was directed against Roark, by and large he was not dealing with a culture that laughed at him. That was a viciousness quite beyond Ayn Rand. We never got to see how Roark stood up to hurtful, denigrating humor of the kind hurled at Ayn Rand. It seemed he maintained his integrity against every other type of insult and assault. That made him hard to particularly emulate with imitation. You had to dig deeper and get at the true core of individualism to be an individual not only in reference to an assault by humor but by Objectivism itself. I suspect that most of the people who attended lectures at NBI weren't individualists yet. They were pre-individualists or really had nothing except superficially in common with individualists. Libertarians tended to be much more individulistic than Objectivists, probably because they eschewed most philosophy. The catechism of Objectivism is conforming. Maybe that's why Rand disliked them. If so, there's irony writ large.

--Brant

[BaalChatzaf]

Edit-- Yes, Ba'al there were exceptions such as Robert Heinlein. I'm sure others will come to mind as I think, but it's a tiny number.

It turns out many of the Bright Bulbs could be found in the world of science fiction. Ursula Leguin, Jerry Pournelle, Lester DelRay, Isaac Assimov, Theodore Sturgeon and others. Some could be found in other areas. For example the Useful Philosophers; Daniel Dennet and Robert Nozick. They work(ed) in epistemology. I knew Nozick personally. A very bright and humane scholar. Stomach cancer robbed us of it least ten more years of his great wit and intellect. Nozick was a rarity; a vertically integrated libertarian thinker. He was both broad and deep and twenty times smarter than Rand. And among the economists, let us not forget Milton Friedman who carried on the work of von Mises. He made the free market respectable in intellectual circles and defended it against the pinko stinko liberals. I think of Friedman as the Anti-Gailbraith.

And of course I must not neglect to mention Stephen J. Gould, who was a commie, but one of the most brilliant paleontologists and biologists of the 20 th century. More important was the way he integrated and wove threads and themes in the domain of evolutionary thought. I would not give you a bent dime for his politics, but his literary style was gorgeous. Now THERE was a writer. His series of lectures and articles in natural history bound up in a series of books will outlive him.

I should mention my favorite Aristotelean, Mortimer Adler, who brought light to the Heathen. He was a wunderkind and one and one of the brains behind the Britannica Great Books series. Adler lived to be 92 and was busy almost up to the end.

And dozens or perhaps hundreds moire who I did not mention because I had not read enough of their works. There is just so many hours in a day to attend to making a living and raising a family. I have a feeling that the Shi'ite Objectivists would denigrate and loath many of the folks I mentioned because they act as though there were no thinkers of any worth between Aristotle and Rand and surely none of any worth since Rand. And while we are at it, remember Brounowski, and his -Ascent of Man- series. He more than canceled out Carl Sagan's -Cosmos-. I will forgive Sagan some of his errors because he lauded the Dutch, who in the 16-19 th centuries showed how trade and commerce can really make the world a good place. Of course Sagan made billyuns and billyuns of errors I won't forgive. Sagan also lauded the Greeks, and to his credit, he ranks Archimedes, Plato and Pythagoras higher than Aristotle. Archimedes was, hands down, the greatest intellect of the Hellenistic world.

In The Land of the Blind, the One Eyed Man is King.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Edited December 3, 2007 by BaalChatzaf

[BaalChatzaf]

In 1968 The Break provided a different sort of relief. There was no laughter but it was relief nevertheless. It was relief from the cult of Objectivism and Ayn Rand. It hurt like hell. There were those of course who weren't relieved. The irony about "The Collective" is that there was a real collective in the 1960s, much bigger than the inner circle, that was mostly deposed of in 1968, but this is a digression.

I never considered myself an Objectivist although I thoroughly enjoyed -Atlas Shrugged- and I even subscribed to -The Objectivist- and -The Ayn Rand Newsletter-.

When I read about the break I must admit I blushed for NB's and Rand's shame. That Ol' Debil sex has been the bane of many an intelligent person. I am from the old school. I believe in keeping business and sex as separate as possible. Never dip you quill in the company's ink, I say. I guess I am an Old Fashioned person with regard to such matters. After the Break, I could not again take Rand as seriously as before the Break.

I was twenty six before I read any Ayn Rand fiction seriously. I did read -The Fountainhead- once and that because of of the motion picture. I likes the book better than the movie. When I was 26 I read -Atlas Shrugged- for the first time (including Galt's overlong speech). I was pleased to see that someone beside myself saw what I saw the way I saw it. By the time I read Atlas, I had already invented for myself, Reality Lite ™, which rescued my from the perils of systematic philosophy of the totally integrated fashion. Comprehensive philosophical systems are not only boring, they are mostly wrong. The world is too complicated to encapsulate in a philosophical system in all of its grand and wonderful aspect. There is more in Heaven and Earth than can be stuffed into a philosophical system. The only philosophy I consider worth while is epistemology pertaining to matters scientific and analysis pertaining to mathematical logic and mathematics proper. I consider metaphysics beyond Reality Lite ™, wretched excess and I laugh. at Aesthetics. Artistic taste and preference is purely subjective. Let's face it guys, our taste in in our mouth and beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Aside from the obvious biological and physical constraints on moral/ethical systems, I consider morality largely a matter of convention. Whatever works to keep society from a grim Hobbsean end and whatever protects our life and property from pirates, theives, con-men, government burocrats and moochers I can reconcile myself to. One of my Guiding Principles is: What is Mine is Mine and what is Yours is Yours. That includes my life and goods primarily. Who needs a complicated system? I like the Heinleinian approach to wrong-doers -- chuck them out through an airlock door, as in -The Moon is a Harsh Mistress-.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Chris Grieb]

Brant and Bob's stories about Objectivism and Ayn Rand are similar to mine. You can read about mine on my OL blog.(Shameless plug)

Interestingly enough I am friends with only a couple of people from that period. I know about a couple more.

Edited December 3, 2007 by Chris Grieb

[James Heaps-Nelson]

The real reasons socially prominent people didn't stand up to defend Atlas was social conformity and not wanting to make waves. Those timid souls have faded into oblivion and most people today wouldn't even recognize their names.

Really? Would you mind naming those names and giving details about how you've learned about their true motives?

J

Jonathan,

Can you name any intellectual from the late 1950's Right beyond Rand antagonist William Buckley that has any impact now? I think that most people on the right reading Rand simply preferred to stay in the comfortable confines of religious conservativism. If not, they could have articulated what they did think after Atlas with or without Rand.

Jim, first you confidently state the "real reasons" "socially prominent people didn't stand up to defend Atlas," and then, when challenged to name any of those people and say how you know the true status of their motives, you indicate that you don't even know who any of the specific persons were. So where do you get a basis for your certainty about their motives? (And if I recall correctly, one of your criticisms of Passion is Barbara's filling in of motives; yet she was filling in with a person she knew well, whereas you're making a blanket mind-reading statement about persons even whose identities you don't know!)

Ellen

___

Ellen,

I'm not making a blind mind-reading statement. I'm simply calling their actions for what they were: a preference for the status quo in morality and metaphysics over the substance of Atlas Shrugged. Almost no privately acknowledged Rand fans some known such as Ronald Reagan, others on the right such as Ludwig Von Mises did not speak out for Rand. Many others like William Buckley treated Rand with utter hostility. I think this not due to Rand's flaws, but due to their variance with her on issues where they had little tenable ground to stand on.

Rand had many flaws among which were a reluctance to cite her intellectual influences. However, this is not the reason she was not defended.

Jim

[Barbara Branden]

Alfonso: "Rand hardly suggested that she was hoping for praise, response, etc... in her public statements. She exuded confidence and self-reliance."

There is no contradiction between confidence and self-reliance on the one hand, and the desire for a positive response to one's work on the other hand. And there is no writer, who puts his work out into the public arena, who does not desire that response.

Barbara

[Alfonso Jones]

Alfonso: "Rand hardly suggested that she was hoping for praise, response, etc... in her public statements. She exuded confidence and self-reliance."

There is no contradiction between confidence and self-reliance on the one hand, and the desire for a positive response to one's work on the other hand. And there is no writer, who puts his work out into the public arena, who does not desire that response.

Barbara

Barbara -

I certainly agree that there is no contradiction. Do you see my point, however, that someone seeing and reading the aggressive, strong statements of confidence and self-reliance could be misled into believing that an expression of positive reaction to the work would not be wanted?

Alfonso

[Ellen Stuttle]

This is just a personal reflection pertaining, albeit tangentially, to the problem of mixed feelings about praising Atlas Shrugged in print. I haven't yet read the posts intervening since my last of yesterday, so this might seem an odd interruption to wherever the discussion's gotten to.

I don't know who any of the people were who might have written fan letters to Rand praising Atlas while keeping silent publicly, and I don't know what they might have said in their letters, in what terms they expressed their praise; however, Jonathan's remarks -- specifically his evocation of a conflicted attitude -- bring to mind the paradoxical quality of my own response. I don't recall if I consciously considered trying to write a fan letter to Rand or if the thought was nipped in the bud without needing explicit formulation because of my feeling that the task would be an impossible one, a contradictory one -- contradictory because, if I were to be honest, I'd have to say things while praising which I believed she wouldn't find pleasing to be told.

I first read Atlas Shrugged just after my freshman year of college, in mid-June 1961; I'd never heard of Ayn Rand before that. I thought that her tale was literarily superb, extraordinary, stupendous -- in the fashion of a magnificant myth, and of an allegory. I found her characters reminiscent of those in a medieval morality play. But would Ayn Rand have appreciated the comparison? I thought she would not. (Some years later I learned that one reviewer -- was it John Chamberlain? -- had described Atlas as "an allegory," and that she'd taken offense at her characters' being found less than "real.") I thought that Ayn Rand, though she'd written a masterwork, was in respects naive about human beings, and furthermore -- here was the peculiar catch -- that she HAD to have been someone naive in the ways she was to have drawn her characters with such evident sincerity. I thought that she indeed would have had to "mean it" -- all of it, belief in the characters' "reality" as well -- to have written the story she'd produced. Thus no matter how complimentary I might have been in extolling the story's execution, its scope, sweep, ingenuity, power, she would not have been happy had I been forthcoming about how I viewed the characterization.

Another problem pertained to aspects of the book to which I reacted with a sense of not only disbelief but distaste. A prime example of this type was the vast-scale attributing of evil motives in the speech -- her depiction of "the soul of the mystic," of worshippers of death -- and the harranguing tone in which she wrote the portrait. I thought she was being unfair, being carried away and going overboard. I wondered if she would, in the case of that segment, if pressed, claim to have precisely meant the extremely generalized and negative details, but I sensed that she would not appreciate being asked. (Later I learned that she was a big admirer of Joan of Arc and I wondered what kind of explosion might greet someone who pointed out the discrepancy between her revilement of the abstract "mystic" and her admiration for so quintessential a mystic, even by the Church's definition, as the Maid of Orleans.)

In regard to the issue of her status as a philosopher, I wouldn't have even mentioned anything about that had I made an attempt at penning a fan letter. I didn't realize back then that she took herself seriously as a philosopher. I thought of the "philosophy" presented as being a vehicle serving her novelistic purposes, if I even thought of it in so many words as "philosophy." Thus something else I wondered about -- later, when I came to know she had longed to be praised by "first-rate" philosophic minds -- was how many persons with minds of that type might have read the book and how many among such persons who did read it thought of the philosophizing as serious philosophizing. My estimate was that few professional philosophers were in the first category, since professional philosophers often haven't much time for reading novels, and that fewer still were in the second.

I'll briefly recount an incident which happened in '64 or '65, by which time I was subscribed to The Objectivist Newsletter. I think this is indicative. While taking a philosophy course with Henry Veatch -- a philosopher well thought of by Objectivists -- I asked if he had read Ayn Rand. He had not read any of her novels. He'd previously been given to read, by another of his students, some selections from the Newsletter, and he hadn't been impressed; he nevertheless consented to look at some pieces I selected. When I went to talk with him about those selections, he told me in his charmingly kind and impish style, "Well, Miss Stuttle [he addressed students using an honorific and the last name], I have to say that, although of course I appreciate her looking favorably on Aristotle, I think that there are respects in which she doesn't understand Aristotle; and I find in reading her that just when I seem to expect calm explication I get instead rhetorical denunciation." I had to laugh; I thought he'd react thus -- even though I'd chosen pieces in which the "rhetorical denunciation" was at a minimum. (This incident was before ITOE had appeared; I'd have chosen that to show him if it had been available, but I don't think he'd have been much impressed even if it had been.)

I suppose the "moral" of my remarks is to suggest through specific example how difficult a task praising Rand might have been for anyone who was admiring but with reservations. I think there's something in the whole tone of her writing which almost advertises: Applaud unreservedly, or your applause will be considered inadequate and won't be valued.

Possibly the comment which for me most succinctly illustrates the problem of how to compliment Rand while remaining honest if one is less than 100% admiring is something a good friend of mine said about her having wanted to write a fan letter to Ayn Rand but in the end been unable to do so. My friend was herself a highly talented writer. She said, "How could I have told Rand that the two writers who to date have had the biggest influence on my own literary approach are her and D. H. Lawrence?"

Ellen

___

[James Heaps-Nelson]

Ellen,

That was an extremely good post. I think that the now hear this tone evident in Atlas can sometimes rub people the wrong way. The way I'd praise Atlas and I do have reservations is to take inventory of those things about which I changed my mind as a result of the book. The hallmark of a book for me even before Atlas was how much my worldview and paradigms shifted while reading it. I felt that way when reading Jules Verne's Mysterious Island and Alexandr Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelago before reading Atlas.

I guess I don't understand the emphasis of someone who can come away from Atlas shaking their head about the negativity. The experience I felt when reading Atlas was like when I really got calculus for the first time or when I understood aromaticity on a free energy level in organic chemistry. Or when I encountered how the DNA molecule worked or encountering Einstein's Special and General Theories or the basic results in quantum mechanics for the first time. It was: wow, this is mindblowingly significant.

Yes, there are many people who shrug off Rand as just a hysterical crank or overly bitter and angry. They missed the main event: the radical new philosophical framework, the celebration of creativity, the homage to productivity and success. I think there are books and works of art that ask us to grow and make us feel a little uncomfortable as we appreciate them. Atlas Shrugged is like that.

Jim

[Newberry]

Ellen,

That was a very nice, heartfelt, and sincere piece.

Michael

[Barbara Branden]

James, I very much liked your post. I, too, recognize that there is considerable negativity in Atlas, but when I first read it, I felt, as you did, "wow, this is mindblowingly significant" -- and any negatives seemed vastly unimportant.

You wrote: "Yes, there are many people who shrug off Rand as just a hysterical crank or overly bitter and angry. They missed the main event: the radical new philosophical framework, the celebration of creativity, the homage to productivity and success. I think there are books and works of art that ask us to grow and make us feel a little uncomfortable as we appreciate them. Atlas Shrugged is like that."

Agreed. What you named is indeed the main event. And although over the years I have come to disagree with Rand in certain important respects, and to see flaws in her writing I did not see before, still, the main event remains of overwhelming importance and value.

Barbara