News: Goddess of the Market by Jennifer Burns


Recommended Posts

Robert; Can't wait to see if I get my copy of the Burn's book today.

I have never seen Deliverance but I once heard James Dickey read some of his poetry before he published the book. Thinking back the reading was done at community college before Dickey became famous. I suspect that most of the students had no idea who he was.

Oh, I think he kept on reading.

--Brant

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 685
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

> your effete condescension infuriates me

Adam, it was a joke.

Yes I got that, but, and this is not an attack, there is an element in the sub texts of your writing that maybe you do not notice or that maybe I am overly sensitive about, but the broad basic goodness of Americans, and most likely humans in general is repeatedly overlooked or ridiculed by the "grouping" issues that Michael has referred to on another thread.

I have know and worked with many brilliant people who received no "formal or classical" education, but who are more intellectually advanced than many PHD's that I have known.

It is a sensitive point with me, so take the observation with that large grain of sodium chloride.

Adam

Over-reaction. The funniest thing about Phil is what Phil thinks is funny.smile.gif He tries, God bless him.

--Brant

Edited by Brant Gaede
Link to comment
Share on other sites

> your effete condescension infuriates me

Adam, it was a joke.

Yes I got that, but, and this is not an attack, there is an element in the sub texts of your writing that maybe you do not notice or that maybe I am overly sensitive about, but the broad basic goodness of Americans, and most likely humans in general is repeatedly overlooked or ridiculed by the "grouping" issues that Michael has referred to on another thread.

I have know and worked with many brilliant people who received no "formal or classical" education, but who are more intellectually advanced than many PHD's that I have known.

It is a sensitive point with me, so take the observation with that large grain of sodium chloride.

Adam

Over-reaction. The funniest thing about Phil is what Phil thinks is funny.smile.gif He tries, God bless him.

--Brant

You are correct Brant. I do overreact to that even when it is innocent. Seen a lot of really smart people treated like dirt by people with a slew of degrees that wouldn't survive one week in the real world.

I apologize for overreacting Phil.

Adam

Link to comment
Share on other sites

> I apologize for overreacting Phil.

No problem, Adam, I do it myself. :blink:

Here's how to tell when I'm mad in a post ==> I say "Jesus!"

Here's how to tell when I'm really mad ==> "Jesus Christ!" (or JESUS! in capital letters)

Here's how to tell when I'm really, really mad => "Jesus H. Christ!"

.

(But I never, never, never use blue ink.)

.

(Yes, Brant, I do think this post is funny. Jesus!)

Edited by Philip Coates
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Reading this bio which just came today, I can state right now it's the complete end of PARC because no one is going to do an ad hominem assault book on Burns to discredit her book. I suspect the same for the Heller bio, too. "The Passion of Ayn Rand" will be the default defense of Ayn Rand as a human being and Leonard Peikoff and the ARI will be rendered essentially speechless. Burns book, BTW, has upset me about Ayn Rand in a way it's hard to adjust to. She has no ax to grind or friend to protect creating a pretty objective evaluation of a most important genius, with a heavy focus on ideas.

--Brant

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I just finished Goddess of the Market.

If you haven't ordered your copy already (the regulars on this list probably already have), don't hesitate. Grab one now.

As Brant said, there is no way that the Jim Valliants and Diana Hsiehs and Andrew Bernsteins of the world can launch an ad hominem attack on Jennifer Burns. She is a historian of American political ideas and movements. She had no personal ties to anyone in Rand-land when she began her project, and no involvement in any Randian schism or controversy. Her book is measured in its language and careful in its sourcing. She dislikes Nathaniel Branden and makes little secret of her dislike; from time to time, she tilts just a little in the Peikovian direction about something. Yet in the end virtually no part of the Orthodox rendition of Ayn Rand's life and character is left standing.

If you want some sense of the tightrope that she had to walk, see the latest installment in her account of working within the Ayn Rand Archives:

http://www.jenniferburns.org/blog/68-in-the-rand-archives-part-3-publishing

Before reading this entry, I didn't realize what the precise relationship was between the Archives (which are part of ARI) and the Estate of Ayn Rand. What the Archives allow you to see, only the Estate can give you permission to quote. Ultimately, Leonard Peikoff decides what uses you can make of your findings, even if you've been been given admission to the Archives and allowed access to nearly everything they contain.

I now understand why, in a book that disagrees with Leonard Peikoff's proclaimed views about Ayn Rand on one issue after another, Dr. Burns refers to him on multiple occasions as Ayn Rand's "intellectual heir"—and she never overtly criticizes any statement by Leonard Peikoff about any subject. And in a book that completes the interment of Mr. Valliant's opus, she directly criticizes it just once, allowing as how PARC "often goes overboard in its attacks on the Brandens" (p. 296).

Robert Campbell

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I just finished Goddess of the Market.

If you haven't ordered your copy already (the regulars on this list probably already have), don't hesitate. Grab one now.

As Brant said, there is no way that the Jim Valliants and Diana Hsiehs and Andrew Bernsteins of the world can launch an ad hominem attack on Jennifer Burns. She is a historian of American political ideas and movements. She had no personal ties to anyone in Rand-land when she began her project, and no involvement in any Randian schism or controversy. Her book is measured in its language and careful in its sourcing. She dislikes Nathaniel Branden and makes little secret of her dislike; from time to time, she tilts just a little in the Peikovian direction about something. Yet in the end virtually no part of the Orthodox rendition of Ayn Rand's life and character is left standing.

If you want some sense of the tightrope that she had to walk, see the latest installment in her account of working within the Ayn Rand Archives:

http://www.jenniferburns.org/blog/68-in-the-rand-archives-part-3-publishing

Before reading this entry, I didn't realize what the precise relationship was between the Archives (which are part of ARI) and the Estate of Ayn Rand. What the Archives allow you to see, only the Estate can give you permission to quote. Ultimately, Leonard Peikoff decides what uses you can make of your findings, even if you've been been given admission to the Archives and allowed access to nearly everything they contain.

I now understand why, in a book that disagrees with Leonard Peikoff's proclaimed views about Ayn Rand on one issue after another, Dr. Burns refers to him on multiple occasions as Ayn Rand's "intellectual heir"—and she never overtly criticizes any statement by Leonard Peikoff about any subject. And in a book that completes the interment of Mr. Valliant's opus, she directly criticizes it just once, allowing as how PARC "often goes overboard in its attacks on the Brandens" (p. 296).

Robert Campbell

I tend to agree, in general, with your analysis of this book. However, I thought that her blaming Nathaniel Branden's extension of Objectivism into the field of psychology as the causative factor (she calls it, "disastrous") leading to some of the repressive atmosphere ("trials," other judgmental actions towards NBI students and "Inner Circle" members) as being unconvincing.

After all, the same type of moral condemnations continued after Nathaniel and Barbara were expelled, by Rand herself, and by Peikoff. And after Rand's death, Peikoff, Schwartz, and Binswanger have continued, even intensified, the repressive intolerant atmosphere with additional "purges" and attempts to rewrite past Objectivist history. For this reprehensible behavior to continue - and to intensify - after Branden's expulsion, means that other factors (either derivative from some aspect of the philosophy, per se, or from the personality characteristics of those still running the show) are likely to be in play.

Also, Burns alleges that Barbara Branden "re-wrote" comments made by Ayn Rand from a series of taped interviews that were conducted in the early sixties for her biographical essay that was included in Who Is Ayn Rand? Burns claims this, but does not quote and contrast the relevant sections so that readers can judge for themselves.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have Barbara Branden's biography, inscribed by the author. I have Nathaniel Branden's memoir (first version, Judgment Day), inscribed by the author. I read the second version of the memoir, but no longer own it. All of these occurred immediately upon publication.

Yet I haven't wasted my money on PARC. And despite the likely high quality of the Burns and Heller books, I won't be getting them very soon, if at all. Personal recession economics are a part of it — but I'm not even going to plunk myself into a Borders armchair with one of them, not in the near future.

It's different now from what it was 20-odd years ago, and I can't quite determine why. Nonetheless, the thought of reading one more volume about Ayn Rand's life fills me with a nearly infinite weariness. I am tired unto an utter lack of literary endurance.

Maybe it's from seeing two more decades of internecine conflict. I really don't know, even after much introspection. Yet it remains that I can't contemplate even the act of reading either new biography without lying down until the feeling leaves me.

Even knowing that Prof. Burns, for the sake of being published, had to genuflect to Peikoff — which is what using "intellectual heir" means, and she certainly knows that — would have once outraged me.

But I just don't care any more. For what it's worth. Perhaps this ground has been plowed so much that it's not fertile any more. By all means, folks, report what nuggets of gold, or even silver, you might find. I just won't be prospecting alongside you.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I got my copy of Goddess of the Market yesterday. I have not finished it but I will and report back.

The reaction has been interesting so far and I can't wait to see what is further said both inside and outside the "usual suspects". It is an interesting time to be an Objectivist.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Jerry,

Burns doesn't give examples from Barbara's book comparing them with the originals; likewise, she doesn't do this with the ARI books she criticizes for their inaccuracy. She doesn't claim that Barbara has changed the sense of what Rand said, unlike the changes with the ARI material.

Robert Campbell makes an excellent point, and I think we will have to wait for the day that all the documents and interviews are made available with any condition.

-NEIL

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Jerry,

Jennifer Burns does not give an example of rewriting from the 1960-1961 interviews with Ayn Rand. It wouldn't have hurt to include some.

I don't think that Dr. Burns knows much about psychology. She doesn't mention how official Objectivism kept house psychologists after 1968: Allan Blumenthal, Edith Packer, Edwin Locke. Or how some kind of "Objectivist psychology" kept going, albeit with noticeable toning down of the theories about Man and Woman. She cites Ellen Plasil's book twice, without mentioning Lonnie Leonard by name.

I don't think these will turn out to be important. She calls Brand Blanshard an Aristotelian scholar. Also not important.

Robert Campbell

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Subject: Biographies, Memoirs, Readers' Assessment of People at a Distance

> It's different now from what it was 20-odd years ago, and I can't quite determine why...Maybe it's from seeing two more decades of internecine conflict. I really don't know, even after much introspection. Yet it remains that I can't contemplate even the act of reading either new biography...Perhaps this ground has been plowed so much that it's not fertile any more. [Greybird]

I can sympathize with much of this. I haven't (yet) read -any- of them in their entirety, even when they came out. Having interacted with Barbara Branden here (and once in the 80's sitting through a course which involved Objectivism given by a Nigerian from Canada, in which she came once as Guest Lecture, giving a stirring defense of Ayn Rand and of Objectivism to counter the professor's obvious negativity and failure to grasp -any- of the concepts)and noted her obvious intelligence and perceptiveness in post after post, I would include PAR in my reading of any of the other four? five? six? biographies.

And I would listen carefully to both her positive and negative assessments and reports of Rand as well as those of Heller, Burns, etc., while drawing my own conclusions based on my own interactions and readings.

My reasons for not reading them to date are:

1. Priorities: In regard to book lists in general, I read first what I think I will get the most benefit from, and often that is totally new material in areas where I have little or no exposure. I'm not a big fan of wearing a rut in the ground reading the umpteenth refinement of the same topic. And a lot of this ground -has- been plowed.

The "get a life" principle applies here.

2. My interest in AR's life is far, far less than my interest in one aspect - her intellectual growth and development, a subject of -enormous- importance that historians will look back and wonder about with regard to a great genius. Part of my lessened interest in personal (or less about intellectual development) issues is because I already know far, far more about her life than I do about many other major figures in literature or history. And that's enough, or close to it. My interest in her quarrels and personal quirks or angers or blind spots or disappointments or the houses she built or her retinue or associates or the blindness of the culture around her is pretty much sated.

3. In a bookstore, when I 'trial read' several chapters of some of the bios, I found a number of the opinions as to AR's motivations to be subject to interpretation. Having met her and spoken with her, I could think of other explanations.

4. I have deep doubts about the objectivity and complete reliability of -any- biography of AR today or for some years to come -- whether by NB, BB, the ARI writers, or Burns or Heller. It is possible to be too close to see someone as volatile and powerful as her clearly. It is possible to never have had contact and only get glimmers from archives (and talking to the preceding group).

5. Biography is a legitimate form, but biographies of well-followed historical figures have let a lot of time pass and have drawn from a much greater variety of materials than one set of archives or one close circle or one group of ideologically interested. There is actually a *big problem* in only drawing from people who are ideologically the same or close to a major figure (in Rand's case, oists, libertarians ... and even conservatives.) All three groups tend to come at things in a similar way in many cases. In many cases, they tend to tend to a harshness in judgment and a certainty in assessing people's motives. [intellectual humility about difficult matters or openness to new interpretations on them is not a big feature among people on the right. Just like it is not in people on the left.]

Here is a key point for me: I am not an epistemological skeptic, but of all the areas that are hard to know, that take a lot of time, evidence, and effort, human beings - as Rand herself once pointed out - are the most complex things on earth.

You can know with full luminous certainty. But it can be long, slow, and hard - in the complex cases. [And, no, you can't know everything there is to know about AR by reading her novels.]

I have often found in Oists and those who are political or philosophically strong 'ideologists', a **very strong tendency to not understand people**. They tend to oversimplify. They have lived in a world of ideas and have been so passionate about them, that simple social awareness or people insight or living with people of different kinds, even those not of one's ideology is often sorely lacking. A crude example (and I don't know that the major biographers do anything this crude) would be to paint Rand as either a complete neurotic or an all-wise saint. Sometimes they polarize - views of Rand among ARI and TAS-oriented people often seem to be oversimplified on both sides to me. That is one reason I hope that either Burns or Heller is not vested into an ideological interpretation or even doesn't care too strongly about Oism. So that agreement/sympathy with the ideas won't make you overly indulgent to the person and disagreement/antipathy won't make you overly looking for feet of clay..or immediately accepting of all criticism.

An example of ideology blinding people skills or awareness would be if people who already have a very clear view of Rand (whom they didn't meet) selectively read new bios or new info to *reinforce* what they already 'knew'.

6. How much detail about someone's life from childhood to 50? [No, just the fact that she fled and hated the communists or took courses X,Y, Z is -not- enough.] People can and do change, but their early lives, written about in sufficient depth and detail, tells you a lot: Starting points inform us about, lend color and depth to, development points. Rand was gregarious in her early years and people she knew then would be -enormously- useful sources about her -- if still alive or if they had written about her (Bennett Cerf, the conservatives, people in Hollywood, Patterson). Once she wrapped herself in a tiny circle, it is much harder to get breadth and variety of perspective. I know that these are now biographies-from-a-distance and so less familiarity but more 'objectivity'? We'll see. [From disputes between PAR and PARC on how to interpret particular issues such as whether her husband drank too much, I can see a lot of problems for a reader at a distance knowing what 'interpretation' to allow to influence him. ]

7. I find reading a second party's opinions and analysis about someone to be a hazardous proposition (for some of the reasons I've been mentioning). Especially wrt to someone as polarizing as AR and if they marshal what they take to be evidence. There is a reason courts disallow hearsay, not partially but totally. And also, it's too easy for even an eyewitness, well-meaning, to give wrong testimony to have seen what is not there. It's easy to be influenced but hard to determine for oneself what is accurate. Even if they claim to offer evidence. I found meeting her and speaking to her directly in three very different moods (upbeat/helpful and depressed/resigned and genius/objective question answerer) to tell me as much about her as many books.

8. For all these reasons, I worry I will be getting "junk knowledge" in too many cases from writers who have a very definite view of AR to get across and want to sway you against any other views. Someone presents a strongly etched version of AR or her actions, uses selective quotes from her letters or journals to buttress it (but not other, rather different quotes) and it seems very plausible. But it's like hearing the prosecution's case and being convinced till you hear the defense's. Or the defense has gotten you to believe the perpetrator has an alibi, is a pillar of the community, would never do X. But then the prosecution gives a very different set of facts and interpretation. And lines up *an entirely different set of witnesses*.

Edited by Philip Coates
Link to comment
Share on other sites

> You could have read half the book in the time it took you to write your post

No I couldn't, smart ass.

At least to page 97.

--Brant

heh, heh

Now come on Brant, he would be on page 8 or 9 and have 42 lesson plans ready to go!

Adam

Throwing enviro pebbles at Phil's windows

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Did you dudes read to page 97 of my post and did you get all of the sub-issues that it was concerned with?

Or did you just skim "oh, geez it's too freakin' long!... almost a PAGE AND A HALF...I'm gonna haftatake a nap!"

. . . And therefore am I going to have to rap the knuckles of each and every one of you?

Edited by Philip Coates
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Did you dudes read to page 97 of my post and did you get all of the sub-issues that it was concerned with?

Or did you just skim "oh, geez it's too freakin' long!... almost a PAGE AND A HALF...I'm gonna haftatake a nap!"

. . . And therefore am I going to have to rap the knuckles of each and every one of you?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Did you dudes read to page 97 of my post and did you get all of the sub-issues that it was concerned with?

Or did you just skim "oh, geez it's too freakin' long!... almost a PAGE AND A HALF...I'm gonna haftatake a nap!"

. . . And therefore am I going to have to rap the knuckles of each and every one of you?

Phil, I skim your posts then print them out for future reading. Unfortunately, they make a two-foot stack next to my bed and constitute a fire hazard.

--Brant

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Did you dudes read to page 97 of my post and did you get all of the sub-issues that it was concerned with?

Or did you just skim "oh, geez it's too freakin' long!... almost a PAGE AND A HALF...I'm gonna haftatake a nap!"

. . . And therefore am I going to have to rap the knuckles of each and every one of you?

Phil, I skim your posts then print them out for future reading. Unfortunately, they make a two-foot stack next to my bed and constitute a fire hazard.

--Brant

Use a scanner, Brant. Then you can use the stack of papers for backing when you target shoot.

Adam

worried Brant could fall at night and can't get up!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

> Phil, I skim your posts then print them out for future reading.

There's a good boy.

> Unfortunately, they make a two-foot stack next to my bed and constitute a fire hazard.

Don't put them near your bed. Place them on the center of your desk in the room where you do your deepest and most profound thinking.

....No, not -that- room!!!!!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Regarding Dr. Burns' statement in her book that Barbara Branden edited or revised what Rand had said in the taped interviews that Barbara used for her biography, I asked her whether she (Dr. Burns) examined the tapes at the ARI Archives or from Barbara Branden's copy. And did she discuss these changes with Barbara, and what was her explanation?

Dr. Burns replied:

"I worked with transcripts at the Ayn Rand Archives. I did not ask Barbara about why she made the changes, but I assume they were done for two reasons: literary style, and because the rights to the interviews are held by Rand's estate, so direct quotes require permission." JB

This is interesting. I did not know that the taped interviews in question (which were originally made in preparation for the 1962 book, Who Is Ayn Rand?) were the legal property of Ayn Rand's Estate. Probably Rand's lawyers made that stipulation when the interviews were arranged, that their contents would remain the property of Miss Rand.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now