Ayn Rand and the World She Made

[Brant Gaede]

Bob K,

"Flouncing" means making a melodramatic public exit, as a stereotypical prima donna might do.

Robert C

Yeah, but Neil only merely left.

Perigo is silly.

I'm glad Valliant's health is improved enough to post a lengthy review, but suspect that happened quite a while ago. All Valliant does is use Lindsay--Ellen Stuttle does too. I think in terms of brainpower Ellen's by far the smartest, then James even though he's always been in way over his head, then Linz who is really an irrelevant talking head without a TV show. In a sense I know Ellen. She reminds me of a cultural anthropologist making supposedly objective but morally bereft statements about her studied observations apropos preparing her Ph.D thesis. This type is the superior if not really scientific person. At least she's right about AGW, a much more important subject.

No matter what they do Rand was Rand. All they can do is keep pointing at their icon and saying that the icon was--but she wasn't! The three major bios are anti-icon pro-Rand the human being. SOLOP and its minions cannot transcend that.

--Brant

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

My computer is down, so I haven't been online today.

A quick note. The banning on SLOP is audience-related and nothing more.

The real reason people hostile to Objectivist Liar and Hater Lindsay Perigo were engaged by him on SLOP was because it generated some kind of audience. Hell, he even made a post not too long ago saying I could post over there (to which I replied over here, "Fuck no!").

I thought Objectivist Liar and Hater Lindsay Perigo had more sense than to think that the present issue with Burns and Valliant will not fizzle out soon. But the poor critter can't help himself. Right now he wants to ban dissenters because, in the world of thug-bully mentalities like his, when he forces someone to shut up, he makes them cry, "Uncle!" Except banning someone is not shutting the person up. Other things happen. In my case, OL happened.

I'm glad, too. On OL, I have been far more effective at popping that bully in his SLOP-snout for his bullying than I ever was on his turf.

Here's a prediction. Once the SLOP audience dies out again (and it will), he will start taunting those he banned and "reconsider" their banned status in hopes they will return and a controversy with them will help him keep afloat.

Gotta go until my computer returns...

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

Too bad you sat on it.

--Brant

[Chris Grieb]

Bob K,

"Flouncing" means making a melodramatic public exit, as a stereotypical prima donna might do.

Robert C

Flouncing sounds like something Perigo does all the time.

[Ellen Stuttle]

Jonathan,

I wonder if there's any evidence or line of reasoning which would lead you to question that Frank was sent into an emotional funk -- whether immediate or delayed -- by Ayn's and Nathaniel's affair.

Your whole way of approach is so backward. You presume that he must have been upset. You come up with increasingly elaborate scenarios for his being upset. You increasingly lose that Barbara's prime evidence that he *was* upset is his suppsed adopting drinking as "a way of life" in the early years of the affair.

As I've said on SOLO, a very different psychological interpretation would be presented by the difference between these two statements:

Barbara's claim in Passion: "[N]ow [in '55, when the AR/NB affair started] [Frank's] drinking began to be a way of life, an escape from an intolerable reality."

And:

In '68 or '69 or '70, no longer able to paint, and becoming senile with the progression of arteriosclerosis, Frank began to while away the time by drinking in his studio.

==

I'll address particulars of a couple of your comments/questions:

Well, as I asked earlier, do we know that Frank was not being kicked out of the apartment during the time that he knew Ventura? Do we have reason to believe that Frank's perspective was anything other than that his wife was still having an affair with another man?

I'm not sure if "we" "know" this. I have strong reason to believe this, based on private correspondence with both Barbara and Nathaniel, which correspondence, no, I'm not going to quote. I asked both of them about some details in mid-1970.

I think that Barbara has also posted on OL material which would indicate that Frank wasn't under any expectation of a continuing affair in the early '60s. In her book she definitely talks -- the chapter after the one being discussed -- about Frank's becoming exuberant over finding painting as a passion.

About the bottles used to mix paints. Barbara, among others, has referred to "long-necked" bottles. I think you have, too, on posts here and there. As I've said, I find the paint-mixing story implausible. I've been told, however -- by Barbara, and, yes, I have the email -- that the original source of that story was *Eloise*.

Ellen

[Ellen Stuttle]

In a sense I know Ellen.

No, you don't, if you could make the following statement:

She reminds me of a cultural anthropologist making supposedly objective but morally bereft statements about her studied observations apropos preparing her Ph.D thesis. This type is the superior if not really scientific person. [....]

Re this:

No matter what they do Rand was Rand. All they can do is keep pointing at their icon and saying that the icon was--but she wasn't! The three major bios are anti-icon pro-Rand the human being. SOLOP and its minions cannot transcend that.

IMO, you completely miss the core of the respective bios and of why there's so much dispute over two of them. Two of the "three major bios" are anti much more than the "icon" of Rand and do not, though both claim to do so, present Rand "the human being." For a long while, I fully accepted that presenting Ayn-as-person was what Barbara was trying to do, despite particulars on which I found her presentation questionable (e.g., one which I thought was wrong from my first reading, the "repression" and "alienation" thesis). The more I see Barbara continuing to emphasize a negative view of Rand -- plus her praise for the Heller book, which in its approach, though it does have some material I find appreciative and useful, especially in the early chapters, ends by underlining her quote from Barbara Weiss describing Rand as "a killer of people" -- the more I think that Barbara has a fundamentally negative view of Rand, whatever positives she says.

Ellen

[Ellen Stuttle]

Ms. Stuttle now insists that [...].

Robert, is there any hope you'll ever resort to accuracy?

If not, there's no hope I'll bother to reply. (Of course, maybe you haven't any hope I will reply and don't even want a reply, just an opportunity for rhetorical flourish.)

Ellen

[Robert Campbell]

If Ms. Stuttle really thinks that everything I ask her is wrongheaded, and everything I say about her is inaccurate, why is she not confining her activities to SOLOP, where she need not associate with such inferior beings as myself, and she can rely (for now) on the support of the Perigonian chorus?

Why spend any time on a list populated by individuals who have either left SOLOP, or been publicly banned, or been surreptitiously blocked from posting there?

Surely Ms. Stuttle would not put Lindsay Perigo's hard-earned sponsorship in jeopardy by questioning any of the bans—if she opposed any of them to begin with.

Robert Campbell

[Neil Parille]

Ellen,

You write (post 280):

About the bottles used to mix paints. Barbara, among others, has referred to "long-necked" bottles. I think you have, too, on posts here and there. As I've said, I find the paint-mixing story implausible. I've been told, however -- by Barbara, and, yes, I have the email -- that the original source of that story was *Eloise*.

Do you mean that Eloise reported Peikoff's claim that the bottles were used for mixing paint, or that Eloise claimed that Frank used the bottles for mixing paint?

EDIT: I assume you mean the former, but I'm a bit confused by these statements on SOLO --

http://www.solopassion.com/node/7156#comment-83541

Might it have been Leonard Peikoff from whom -- via indirect report -- Barbara first heard about bottles in a closet?

***

She definitely knows about Leonard's saying that bottles used for mixing paints were found after Frank's death.

***

The expansion in magnitude, with retelling, of the cupboard find, however, makes that tale sound like a tall tale -- especially if Leonard Peikoff's Ford Hall Forum remarks was the original public source of the story.

Best I can tell, Barbara did not interview Eloise or have a statement from her prior to Passion. She heard the "liquor bottles each week found by the housekeeper" via Barbara Weiss. Does anyone know what year Weiss left Rand? (I'm guessing around 77).

Incidentally, Heller writes that

after the death of both O'Connors, Peikoff took stock of the neglected studio, found old liquor bottles, and told friends that Frank had used them for mixing paints, although he hadn't been able to paint in many years. (ARWSM, p. 403.)

There is no source for this, unless it refers to Barbara Weiss' interview in 1983. But how would Weiss know what Peikoff said and did in '82 if she left in the 70s (it's possible of course)?

This statement from Heller implies that the idea that Frank drank too much was known prior to Passion. It also implies that Peikoff is being less than candid.

-Neil Parille

Edited January 20, 2010 by Neil Parille

[Brant Gaede]

In a sense I know Ellen.

No, you don't, if you could make the following statement:

She reminds me of a cultural anthropologist making supposedly objective but morally bereft statements about her studied observations apropos preparing her Ph.D thesis. This type is the superior if not really scientific person. [....]

Re this:

No matter what they do Rand was Rand. All they can do is keep pointing at their icon and saying that the icon was--but she wasn't! The three major bios are anti-icon pro-Rand the human being. SOLOP and its minions cannot transcend that.

IMO, you completely miss the core of the respective bios and of why there's so much dispute over two of them. Two of the "three major bios" are anti much more than the "icon" of Rand and do not, though both claim to do so, present Rand "the human being." For a long while, I fully accepted that presenting Ayn-as-person was what Barbara was trying to do, despite particulars on which I found her presentation questionable (e.g., one which I thought was wrong from my first reading, the "repression" and "alienation" thesis). The more I see Barbara continuing to emphasize a negative view of Rand -- plus her praise for the Heller book, which in its approach, though it does have some material I find appreciative and useful, especially in the early chapters, ends by underlining her quote from Barbara Weiss describing Rand as "a killer of people" -- the more I think that Barbara has a fundamentally negative view of Rand, whatever positives she says.

Ellen

That Weiss quote was how Weiss had come to view Rand and a legit inclusion in the bio becaue of her long relationship with her.

Nevermind Rand, just get Barbara. That's all you and Lindsay are about re these bios. It's all PARC II. I'll give Valliant credit for a seemingly broader focus tho I strongly suspect it's a smokescreen.

Each of the bios starting with The Passion of Ayn Rand are vastly superior to 90% of the Orthodoxy representation especially since 1986.

--Brant

not seduced by the Dark Side

[Brant Gaede]

Lindsay Perigo can't displace Barbara Branden and James Valliant failed. They're still trying by trying to make Heller's bio PAR II and cutting losses on Burns as best they can by sucking up to her by way of contradistinction. Thus displacing Barbara means displacing Heller as a package deal. In PARC Valliant did a bait and switch by going after the easier Branden target Nathaniel and then segueing the animadversion onto Barbara the true main target. Get rid of Barbara and Ellen is the last man standing as the primary authority of who Ayn Rand really was back in the days, but this bs won't work. It won't work because Burns' bio essentially supports the other two and there goes the Rand icon. In what appears to be a great developing irony it seems the ARI crowd is becoming less and less interested in that icon qua icon. This leaves SOLOP as the last get-Barbara bastion fueled by Perigo hate and Stuttle vanity.

--Brant

Edited January 20, 2010 by Brant Gaede

[Neil Parille]

Brant,

How does Ellen know what Barbara Weiss' feeling were about Rand after she broke with her? Perhaps she was saddened about everything and not angry.

Barbara Weiss, the Kalbermans, the Blumenthals and the Brandens knew Rand much better than Ellen. She is almost in Valliant land claiming that they are being unfair to Rand without presenting any contrary evidence.

-Neil Parille

[Dragonfly]

Let me tell you that the idea that Frank used liquor bottles to "mix his paints" is complete and utter bullshit. It is telling that Peikoff felt it necessary to come up with that explanation, which suggests that it were not just a few bottles but a considerable number of them, otherwise no "explanation" had been necessary.

[Neil Parille]

DF,

I was going to make the same point. The claim is so absurd that the opposite is probably true; just like "the dog ate my homework" means "I didn't do my homework."

-Neil Parille

[Brant Gaede]

Let me tell you that the idea that Frank used liquor bottles to "mix his paints" is complete and utter bullshit. It is telling that Peikoff felt it necessary to come up with that explanation, which suggests that it were not just a few bottles but a considerable number of them, otherwise no "explanation" had been necessary.

Where are the paintings?

--Brant

sounds like a great way to waste a lot of paint and, while I'm not an artist, I wonder how if you put in one color then mix it with another you can tell what the result is with the first color all slopped up on the sides effectively unmixed

Edited January 20, 2010 by Brant Gaede

[Xray]

That's an excellent question, and one that I'd like to hear answered by many others, including TheValliants™, most SOLOPsists and others who think that Frank was probably gleeful that he could make his wife happy by allowing her to fuck another man in his bed. Of course, some of the SOLOPsists are gay, so we'd have to ask about a beloved, devoted, long-term partner (rather than a "husband") who had originally agreed in front of friends and other witnesses to be monogamous, but then later changed his or her mind.

I don't envision any SOLOPsists being willing to give up their own beds twice a week so that a lomg-term partner with whom they had a meaningful relationship could have sex with someone else. In fact, from what I've seen of most of them, I think that such a partner even hinting at such an arrangement would send them into one of their typical rages.

Actually, screw the hypotheticals. A better question would be, "Have you allowed your beloved life-partner to fuck someone else on a regular basis in your own bed?" Anyone can claim anything when discussing mere hypotheticals that they'll probably never face in reality.

ITA, Johnathan.

That Rand had the nerve to ask Frank to move out of their own bedroom so that she could have sex with her lover clearly shows how totally disconnectd from reality she was.

And that Frank and Barbara agreed to this disastrous arrangement shows to what degree Rand had already succeeded in disconnecting their close followers from reality as well.

Rand probably had the illusion it would all be like in Atlas Shrugged where both Rearden and D'Anconia are happy that their love Dagny ends up with alpha male Galt.

Quite ironic how the "Objectivist" Rand obviously confused the figments of her fiction with objective reality. The price she was to pay for that self-delusion was bitter.

DF: Let me tell you that the idea that Frank used liquor bottles to "mix his paints" is complete and utter bullshit. It is telling that Peikoff felt it necessary to come up with that explanation, which suggests that it were not just a few bottles but a considerable number of them, otherwise no "explanation" had been necessary.

Indeed, it is asinine "explanation". For what LP can't explain is how why all those bottles got there.

Didn't Rand say Franks was "John Galt on strike"? Seeking oblivion in alcohol may indeed have been Frank's way of "going on strike", withdrawing himself from a reality he could not bear anymore.

[Neil Parille]

I spoke to a physician friend of mine today. He said that, while in general practice, he treated around 6 people a year who had D's contraction.

He said that it would interfere with painting (if it were on the painting hand).

-Neil Parille

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I'm back. Thank God my computer problems finished. There's still some work, but at least I am operating again.

Robert C asks why Stuttle even comes here to consort with the wrongheaded, the inaccurate, and the inferior.

I, too, wonder.

After all, there's a full-blown Symposium on SLOP for consorting up a storm with the intelligent, the scholarly and the heroic. One that has been sanatized against not toeing the party line er... the wrongheaded, the inaccurate, and the inferior.

Also, I wonder if the sudden tidal wave in audience is crashing the server over there.

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

Ah, Michael. You solved the computer problem; did the computer solve your problem(s)?

--Brant

just curious

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Brant,

The computer by itself only confuses my problems more. It takes a lot of discipline to make it solve a problem.

Not just me, either.

Notice on SLOP that there is a righteous discussion about intellectual property "looters," copyright violators, etc. with moral condemnations galore.

This thread is usually sandwiched in between classical music threads where great gushing ensues about copyrighted works posted without authorization to YouTube and reproduced enthusiastically on SLOP. The fact is that most of that material would be removed immediately from YouTube if the copyright owners (especially owners of the mechanical rights) wrote a simple letter to YouTube. That does not remove the guilt from site-owners, though. Posting that stuff on a site, even using embedded links, strictly speaking, is a copyright violation.

Heh.

Those righteous moral crusaders for intellectual property sure love a freebie for their "value swoons" when it looks like they can get away with taking unauthorized works just because everyone else is doing it.

Sack and pillage! Sack and pillage! Go for it!

er...

Wait a minute...

From all the screaming, I thought the "looters" were the ones who want to discuss changing values in copyright, or abolish it...

But what about those who actually do it?...

Hmmmm...

See what a computer all by itself does? It makes oodles of loot lots of videos of copyrighted material easy to get and easy to share, all for free!

btw - As an aside. I hold that copyright is a complex issue. I'm using the standards of the moral crusaders above to show their hypocrisy between their theory and their actions, but that does not mean I endorse their oversimplified theory. By that theory, the very one they use as a bludgeon to "trounce the evil looters," they should condemn themselves for thier own looting and grovel in the despair of a lost soul. But I actually find nothing wrong with posting videos from YouTube on a site, even when there are issues. I have good reasons, too, but I don't want to go into that now and derail this thread.

My point here is, if you do something, don't preach the contrary. You look ridiculous that way. Especially if you use computers.

The abundant facilities people get from computers sure confuse the hell out of the morally challenged. Never before has it been so easy to be a hypocrite in front of so many, all for free...

Michael

[Ellen Stuttle]

Ellen,

You write (post 280):

About the bottles used to mix paints. Barbara, among others, has referred to "long-necked" bottles. I think you have, too, on posts here and there. As I've said, I find the paint-mixing story implausible. I've been told, however -- by Barbara, and, yes, I have the email -- that the original source of that story was *Eloise*.

Do you mean that Eloise reported Peikoff's claim that the bottles were used for mixing paint, or that Eloise claimed that Frank used the bottles for mixing paint?

EDIT: I assume you mean the former, [...].

No, I mean the latter, that Eloise was the one who came up with the paint-mixing story.

but I'm a bit confused by these statements on SOLO --

http://www.solopassion.com/node/7156#comment-83541

Might it have been Leonard Peikoff from whom -- via indirect report -- Barbara first heard about bottles in a closet?

***

She definitely knows about Leonard's saying that bottles used for mixing paints were found after Frank's death.

***

The expansion in magnitude, with retelling, of the cupboard find, however, makes that tale sound like a tall tale -- especially if Leonard Peikoff's Ford Hall Forum remarks was the original public source of the story.

I don't know what you find confusing. Barbara doesn't say anything in Passion about bottles found after Frank's death. There what she reports is "rows" removed each week. Later, however, it was a posthumous find that Barbara spoke of several places -- on SOLOHQ (via forwards from Brant, here and here), on OL (here), also in a Full Context interview (here) -- and in none of these did she say anything about weekly removals. So I wonder if it was via someone's telling her what Leonard Peikoff had said in 1987 at the Ford Hall Forum that she first heard a report of bottles being found after Frank had died.

I've just noticed that Leonard Peikoff didn't specify the bottles' being found "in a closet," and that Barbara only once includes this wording:

here

a great many empty liquor bottles in a closet in his studio

But bottles accumulating in the room wouldn't make sense if Eloise was cleaning the place each week.

Best I can tell, Barbara did not interview Eloise or have a statement from her prior to Passion. She heard the "liquor bottles each week found by the housekeeper" via Barbara Weiss.

Best I can tell, that's right. Barbara says -- here -- that she has "letters giving their statements from both Don Ventura and the maid." The letter from Ventura I suppose was before Passion was written, since she references without identifying Ventura his opinion that Frank was an alcoholic. But if she had a pre-bio letter from Eloise talking about a stash of bottles found after Frank died, wouldn't she have mentioned this find in the book? (There's a 1992 letter from Eloise listed in the auction material.)

Does anyone know what year Weiss left Rand? (I'm guessing around 77).

Allan and Joan left in the summer of 77, Elayne not long after, according to Passion. The date isn't given, and the wrong year (1978) is given for the Blumenthals' departure, possibly a typo. According to Heller, Weiss left not long after Elayne.

Incidentally, Heller writes that

after the death of both O'Connors, Peikoff took stock of the neglected studio, found old liquor bottles, and told friends that Frank had used them for mixing paints, although he hadn't been able to paint in many years. (ARWSM, p. 403.)

There is no source for this, unless it refers to Barbara Weiss' interview in 1983. But how would Weiss know what Peikoff said and did in '82 if she left in the 70s (it's possible of course)?

According to Peikoff it wasn't him but "a cleaning woman" -- I assume he means Eloise -- who found the bottles: "a cleaning woman who found empty liquor bottles in his studio after he died." (The full answer was transcribed by Robert Campbell and posted on OL here.)

Peikoff doesn't say it was after both of the O'Connors died. Also, Nathaniel claims (pg. 330 MYWAR, via a comment written as if it were a direct quote from Elayne) that Rand was the origin of the paint-mixing story, which would indicate that Rand knew about the bottles being found -- although how Elayne would know this, since she left before Frank's death...?

This statement from Heller implies that the idea that Frank drank too much was known prior to Passion.

Huh? I don't follow. Where in the statement are you seeing an implication of "the idea that Frank drank too much"?

It also implies that Peikoff is being less than candid.

Why would it imply that? Although the conclusion might be true, it doesn't necessarily follow. Do you assume that if Frank had used bottles to mix paints, he'd necessarily have thrown out the bottles when he could no longer paint?

Ellen

Edited January 21, 2010 by Ellen Stuttle

[Jonathan]

Jonathan,

I wonder if there's any evidence or line of reasoning which would lead you to question that Frank was sent into an emotional funk -- whether immediate or delayed -- by Ayn's and Nathaniel's affair.

Sure. If you have evidence to share, I'd be more than happy to consider it. I'm always open to evidence.

Your whole way of approach is so backward. You presume that he must have been upset. You come up with increasingly elaborate scenarios for his being upset.

You think that it's an elaborate scenario to suggest that a person's drinking buddy might learn something about the person from his other drinking buddies?

You increasingly lose that Barbara's prime evidence that he *was* upset is his suppsed adopting drinking as "a way of life" in the early years of the affair.

I think there are basically a few options:

1) Frank, like a true Randian hero, was happy that the woman he loved found someone else to love and value enough to have extramarital sex with -- and enough to risk the possibility of throwing away her marriage. Frank adored Ayn and was confident enough in his status as a real-life Frisco or Rearden that he wouldn't have felt threatened by the idea of his wife having sex with a man who was younger and much more intelligent and ambitious than he was.

2) Frank didn't really care one way or the other. Ayn was a meal-ticket, and as long as he got keep his status as official husband, and she wasn't going to boot him out into the street where he'd have to try to pull his own weight (at his age with his lack of any marketable skills), she could have all the boy-toys she wanted. Fine with him. In fact, he appreciated the relief -- let the mesmerized new kid service her!

3) Frank may have exuded the hollow confidence that good-looking people often exude, but beneath it he knew that he was not especially talented, intelligent, or ambitious. He loved Ayn, had become dependent on her for his lifestyle, and recognized that if he had put his foot down and objected to her request that she be allow to have an affair, she might have dumped him for the younger, brighter man.

I think option 3 sounds the most realistic and option 1 the least. I've assumed that you haven't been arguing for option 2, but if you have, I'd like to hear more of your reasoning.

I'm not sure if "we" "know" this. I have strong reason to believe this, based on private correspondence with both Barbara and Nathaniel, which correspondence, no, I'm not going to quote. I asked both of them about some details in mid-1970.

Okay, but I can't base my opinions on private correspondence that you've had with others and which I haven't read.

I think that Barbara has also posted on OL material which would indicate that Frank wasn't under any expectation of a continuing affair in the early '60s.

And yet the sex did continue in the 60s, though much less frequently. I'd imagine that even infrequent sex between Ayn and Nathaniel might give Frank reason to believe that the affair was still on.

In her book she definitely talks -- the chapter after the one being discussed -- about Frank's becoming exuberant over finding painting as a passion.

Frank's becoming exuberant over painting wouldn't be an indication that he was not upset about his marriage and the affair. I've played with musicians who were exuberant about music despite being very hurt by their marital problems. In fact, you could say that their passion for activities outside their marriage seemed to increase quite a bit.

About the bottles used to mix paints. Barbara, among others, has referred to "long-necked" bottles. I think you have, too, on posts here and there.

No. I could be wrong but I'm pretty sure that I haven't referred to "long-necked" bottles when discussing the issue. I've had a few conversation on the different O'ist sites in which I think others seemed to be assuming that my primary argument would be that long-necks would present a problem, but I think that's because their lack of direct experience with painting limited them to not being able to envision all of the other problems which I think are more significant.

As I've said, I find the paint-mixing story implausible. I've been told, however -- by Barbara, and, yes, I have the email -- that the original source of that story was *Eloise*.

and you later clarified the above statement:

No, I mean the latter, that Eloise was the one who came up with the paint-mixing story.

I'd be interested in learning the details of how it was determined that Eloise "came up" with the paint-mixing story. Does "came up" with it mean that Eloise was the first from whom Barbara and/or anyone else had heard it? Does it mean that Eloise could not have first heard it from Peikoff after informing him at some point that she had found many bottles?

J

[Robert Campbell]

I think there are basically a few options:

1) Frank, like a true Randian hero, was happy that the woman he loved found someone else to love and value enough to have extramarital sex with -- and enough to risk the possibility of throwing away her marriage. Frank adored Ayn and was confident enough in his status as a real-life Frisco or Rearden that he wouldn't have felt threatened by the idea of his wife having sex with a man who was younger and much more intelligent and ambitious than he was.

2) Frank didn't really care one way or the other. Ayn was a meal-ticket, and as long as he got keep his status as official husband, and she wasn't going to boot him out into the street where he'd have to try to pull his own weight (at his age with his lack of any marketable skills), she could have all the boy-toys she wanted. Fine with him. In fact, he appreciated the relief -- let the mesmerized new kid service her!

3) Frank may have exuded the hollow confidence that good-looking people often exude, but beneath it he knew that he was not especially talented, intelligent, or ambitious. He loved Ayn, had become dependent on her for his lifestyle, and recognized that if he had put his foot down and objected to her request that she be allow to have an affair, she might have dumped him for the younger, brighter man.

I think option 3 sounds the most realistic and option 1 the least. I've assumed that you haven't been arguing for option 2, but if you have, I'd like to hear more of your reasoning.

Meanwhile, by my reading Jim Valliant pulls strongly in his opus for option 1.

So does Ms. Stuttle support option 1?

Or is this remark of mine further evidence of inferior, inaccurate wrongheadedness?

Robert Campbell

PS. I'm surprised to find Ms. Stuttle linking to my transcription of Leonard Peikoff's Ford Hall Forum answer about Frank O'Connor's drinking. Surely this, too, is so inaccurate and wrongheaded as not to be worth citing...

[Jerry Biggers]

What follows is a "rant:"

Enough, already! If I were a conservative or a liberal, perusing the internet looking for evidence of the political or philosophical irrelevance of Objectivism in today's culture, I am sure that I could find much evidence to the contrary.

However, I think that the endless discussion of whether or not Frank had wine in his paint bottles, or whether he drank heavily, might just fit the bill as evidence that some Objectivists have lost their grasp of issues that are important to the philosophy or to the current state of the world.

It is unlikely to expect that proponents of the "Frank-became-a-depressed-alcoholic-during-or-because-of-his-wife's-affair" School, or the "Frank-was-a-contented-artist/empty-wine-bottle-collector-who-was-pleased-by-and-unaffected-by-his-wife's-affair" School - will ever be able to convince their rivals. Furthermore, this subject has been beaten to death what meager evidence there was, and has now fallen into a closed-loop of unverifiable speculation.

Of course, anyone can discuss whatever they want regarding Objectivism, here or elsewhere. And who am I to say that discussion should be limited? Actually, I am not. But to anyone outside of Objectivism, it just looks like Objectivism cannot stay with issues that are important.

So there! [End of Rant]

Edited January 21, 2010 by Jerry Biggers

[Selene]

Kinda makes those crazy Catholics killing each other over angels and head and pins and things...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irhroQ14Ufo

No offense folks, but as someone who missed this period, it does look rather a waste of good minds. "Bell the cat, close the book, quench the candle."

Adam