Ayn Rand and the World She Made

[Ellen Stuttle]

[....] What does the late Mr. Oconnor's drinking habits have to do with the quality of Ayn Rand's philosophy. [....]

Ba'al Chatzaf

Nothing.

Ellen

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I love how Stuttle channels Barbara now, talking about her "rescinding" and so forth.

This is just like Valliant saying someone "concedes" something when the person has done nothing of the sort.

I have to admit, Stuttle is a quick learner.

Michael

[tjohnson]

Heh.

One day M. Xray will learn how the program works. Until then, she will keep saying it doesn't.

I used to believe it was a lost cause, but I believe one day she will actually get it. For no other reason than she keeps trying to make the reality of it fit with the fantasy of it in her head.

All that effort has to pay off some day.

So I try to practice the virtue of patience.

Michael

Michael -

Clearly something in the combination of program and Xray is failing, consistently. I think it's pretty obvious to most of us that it's not the software.

Regards,

Bill P

Speaking as someone who writes software I wouldn't discount that it has a few bugs.

[Neil Parille]

Ellen,

As far as Heller's use of Barbara Weiss as a source, I think we should consider with Anne Heller said:

In general, if I don’t cite an obvious source for a particular fact or observation, it is because there are multiple sources and the cited one(s) are the most definitive or specific.

http://doubleday.knopfdoubleday.com/2009/10/05/ask-anne-c-heller-a-question/comment-page-1/#comment-36575

-Neil Parille

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Jerry,

If you are feeling perplexed about all this noise again regarding Frank's drinking, look at the people like Stuttle who are making all the noise and think, "What's in it for them?"

They usually say they are setting the record straight and stuff like that, but are they truly interested in that?

For instance, Stuttle gives search numbers on Google, mentioning the articles and blog posts bashing Rand that cite the two recent books on her as sources. (btw - Instead of Googling [rand bitch], try [rand hero] and see what pops up. It's a hell of a lot more--I get over two million. If you play with this, you get some cool stuff.)

The premise is that if information about issues like Frank's drinking were not in the books, the Rand bashers would not bash Rand. So the true intellectual need is to feed them different information and they will stop. But they will keep on bashing Rand so long as "false friends" of Rand feed them Rand-poison. That premise has to stay unstated, though, because it's just plain silly.

But a premise is a premise and the crusaders in the War of Frankian sobriety have to try to sanatize the Rand supporter side by attacking this person and that, especially Barbara (I call it tribal scapegoating). Otherwise they have no heroic mission of "setting the record straight."

Now look at the blogs of where Rand is bashed. Look at the news articles where comments are allowed. Look at the forums. Do you see these heroic crusaders "setting the record straight" on those places? Places where an enormous amount of stomp-down out-right misinformation is presented to wide audiences?

No. Of course not. There's no gang behind them to help them throw stones if they venture on to those places.

Do you see them writing original works for the mass audience promoting Rand's ideas or a different picture of Rand?

No. Of course not. That would take work and creativity and competence.

So can anyone believe that their true interest is to "set the record straight?"

I say it is not.

I will let each reader speculate for himself on the true motives of these folks. But it usually starts with the vanity of the second-hander...

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Speaking as someone who writes software I wouldn't discount that it has a few bugs.

GS,

It has a lot of bugs. But that has nothing to do with Xray's fantasies.

For instance, here's a bug. One of the reasons I have set aside working on the Portal page for now is that upgrades always destroy the changes I make. After three times in a row, I set it aside. Another involves logging the size of the storage space on the server side. There are several bugs I have detected.

I think IPB uses the Microsoft habit of putting out software with a lot of untested stuff, letting the paying customers sift through the bugs, then fixing them as the complaints identify them.

Michael

[Neil Parille]

Michael,

I know I sound like a broken record, but if the Brandenian account of Rand is so far off, why doesn't the ARI publish 100 Voices (Heller cites it by page numbers, so it must be ready to go)?

Why haven't we seen an authorized biography yet?

Why didn't Valliant quote from interviews that the archives?

I see that Valliant is over at SOLO arguing that Rand never changed her philosophy and never went through a Nietzschean phase. Apparently he is ignorant of the most recent discussion of this: Shoshana Milgram's essay The Fountainhead from Notebook to Novel in the Mayhew collection.

I turn now to a speculation about one important aspect of the characterization: the progressive removal from the novel, and from its hero, of philosophically bad Nietszsche-like elements that Ayn Rand found more and more objectionable and unecessary in the course of the years she worked on the book (p. 24).

Milgram strikes me as rather dogmatic, but I doubt that her biography of Rand will support PARC.

-Neil Parille

Edited January 23, 2010 by Neil Parille

[jriggenbach]

4. Have you asked Jim Valliant if he has done any archival research on this or other matters since PARC? He likes to imply that he is "tight" with Peikoff and the archives. Have you contacted Milgram or the archives?

No to all. The only correspondence I've had with Jim Valliant was last summer over the Wikipedia business. (Side note to Brant: Holly did most of the Wikipedia editing, and he was extremely ill, in the hospital several times.)

Ellen

Ellen, you write that James Valliant was "extremely ill" and "in the hospital several times" around six months ago ("last summer"). What was the problem? Terminal self-importance?

JR

[Xray]

- edited by me -

Edited January 23, 2010 by Xray

[Alfonso Jones]

Heh.

One day M. Xray will learn how the program works. Until then, she will keep saying it doesn't.

I used to believe it was a lost cause, but I believe one day she will actually get it. For no other reason than she keeps trying to make the reality of it fit with the fantasy of it in her head.

All that effort has to pay off some day.

So I try to practice the virtue of patience.

Michael

Michael -

Clearly something in the combination of program and Xray is failing, consistently. I think it's pretty obvious to most of us that it's not the software.

Regards,

Bill P

Speaking as someone who writes software I wouldn't discount that it has a few bugs.

I have written software, also, GS. But if you're wondering about this, read Xray's descriptions of the "software problems" she is encountering. That will make it clear that she is either confused, or attempting to confuse.

Bill P

[Ellen Stuttle]

Ellen,

As far as Heller's use of Barbara Weiss as a source, I think we should consider with Anne Heller said:

In general, if I don’t cite an obvious source for a particular fact or observation, it is because there are multiple sources and the cited one(s) are the most definitive or specific.

http://doubleday.knopfdoubleday.com/2009/10/05/ask-anne-c-heller-a-question/comment-page-1/#comment-36575

-Neil Parille

Neil, that's just ridiculous, and a prime example of Heller's not answering the question asked. What I had asked when Heller came back with that non-informative reply is whether the Blumenthals had requested what they said about Frank's drinking be withheld.

On the specific subject of Frank's drinking, obviously Allan would be far more "definitive" as to a qualified opinion on whether Frank's health was harmed by drinking than anyone else (except maybe Edie Langer, an internist, who was also a visitor to the O'Connors apartment on occasions in the '70s, though not so often as Allan).

On other things for which Weiss is cited -- which you seem to be extending the answer to cover -- are you claiming that her assessment of Ayn's psychology is legitimate to just plop down there without anything countering it said from people who would certainly disagree?

Ellen

[Ellen Stuttle]

Milgram strikes me as rather dogmatic, but I doubt that her biography of Rand will support PARC.

Do you mean just on the point about Nietzsche? She of course agrees with some things Valliant argued in PARC.

I still see conflicting reports as to whether her biography is going to stop at 1957 or be a complete biography. If it stops at 1957, my bet is that the Brandens will hardly be mentioned in it.

Supposedly, according to a friend who's in frequent contact with Shosh, she's almost done with the book.

Ellen

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

On the specific subject of Frank's drinking, obviously Allan would be far more "definitive" as to a qualified opinion on whether Frank's health was harmed by drinking than anyone else (except maybe Edie Langer, an internist, who was also a visitor to the O'Connors apartment on occasions in the '70s, though not so often as Allan).

I wonder how Stuttle knows this.

Oh yeah. I forgot. Like she said and insinuates all the time, she's in tight with the Blumenthals.

I find it odd to be in tight with someone like that and not ask them a simple question.

Some people might find that to be "just ridiculous."

Michael

[Ellen Stuttle]

I love how Stuttle channels Barbara now, talking about her "rescinding" and so forth.

No channeling. I've linked the posts twice, and quoted from them on the issue of the change of story from removals each week to posthumous stash.

The story also changed on the issue of when Frank's purported drinking problem started. MM quoted the posts in full on the SOLO thread. Here are the statements changing the onset time.

link

I did not say he was an alcoholic when the collective was reading ATLAS. It happened much later, only beginning in the final years of my relationship with Ayn.

[Technically, she's correct that *she* didn't say in Passion that Frank became an alcoholic in the mid-50s. She only cites an unnamed drinking buddy opining that. What she precisely says is that "[Franks'] drinking began to be a way of life" then.]

link

I left in 1968, and I've been told that his really debilitating drinking began after that time.

==

The premise is that if information about issues like Frank's drinking were not in the books, the Rand bashers would not bash Rand. So the true intellectual need is to feed them different information and they will stop. But they will keep on bashing Rand so long as "false friends" of Rand feed them Rand-poison. That premise has to stay unstated, though, because it's just plain silly.

I stated that that is not my premise.

Ellen

[Ellen Stuttle]

On the specific subject of Frank's drinking, obviously Allan would be far more "definitive" as to a qualified opinion on whether Frank's health was harmed by drinking than anyone else (except maybe Edie Langer, an internist, who was also a visitor to the O'Connors apartment on occasions in the '70s, though not so often as Allan).

I wonder how Stuttle knows this.

Oh yeah. I forgot. Like she said and insinuates all the time, she's in tight with the Blumenthals.

I find it odd to be in tight with someone like that and not ask them a simple question.

Some people might find that to be "just ridiculous."

Michael

C'mon, Michael, wake up. I had lots of conversations with Allan Blumenthal in '78-'80, which was after his and Joan's break with Ayn. I never thought to ask him them whether Frank drank, and he didn't say anything on the subject, but he did say quite a bit else.

I have told you that I am not going to intrude into his life at this late date to query him about Frank's drinking. I would consider doing this very impolite. I have not been in touch with him for almost 30 years. Would you just drop back into someone's life you haven't been in contact with for years to ask a factual question like that? Minimum politeness would dictate that I'd have to catch him up on what I've been doing in between. But I have no desire to write to him for the purpose of catching up. This would be a ruse. I don't engage in ruses, though I don't expect you to believe the statement.

Ellen

[Dragonfly]

As I mentioned before, Anne Heller wrote (in a reply to Michael Moeller):

I did discuss Frank’s drinking with the Blumenthals. They supported, and support, what I reported in the book.

I think that is unequivocal enough. She names her source and assures us of the agreement of those persons. She has no moral obligation to submit tapes or letters or the contents of any private conversation with them in any form, to defend herself. Anyone who has doubts about that statement is free to check with the Blumenthals themselves, that should be enough.

[Neil Parille]

Ellen,

1. By "dogmatic" I mean that Milgram is a dogmatic Objectivist (from what I can tell). Her view of N's influence on Rand, however, appears different from Valliant's. Milgram is described by the archives as writing a "full scale biography" (or words to that effect).

2. I'd like a bit more information from Heller as to why she reached some her conclusions, but perhaps she isn't interested in a dialogue with people who call those they disagree with liars, bitches, etc.* For example, Prof. Burns says that her investigations at the archives show that the RR typewriter story goes back to Rand. Has Jim Valliant said that maybe he was wrong to accuse Barbara and Fern Brown of being liars? Have Perigo or Moeller asked Valliant about this?

3. Heller did have access to 100 Voices which I imagine contains a different view on Rand. Perhaps she doesn't find Peikoff, Binswanger, Valliant, etc. persuasive in light of her investigations.

-Neil Parille

*This is not to imply that you call Barbara these things, but I haven't heard any objection from you when Perigo does.

Edited January 24, 2010 by Neil Parille

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Stuttle,

I believe you don't contact the Blumenthals because you are afraid that they will blow you off for being a pain in the ass. Then you could not feed the fantasy of being in tight with them to the forums where you post.

If other people currently contact the Blumenthals for this very same issue, I see no good reason on earth that you cannot, being tight with them and all.

Manners? Not even in the ballpark when I see you keep speculating on what they would and would not do, and what they would and would not say. I think channeling them in public like that is impolite, not to mention weird when email is practicly free, but then again, who am I? I'm not tighty-wighty with the Blumenthals like you are.

Fear?

Sounds a lot more like it to me.

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I love how Stuttle channels Barbara now, talking about her "rescinding" and so forth.

No channeling. I've linked the posts twice, and quoted from them on the issue of the change of story from removals each week to posthumous stash.

The story also changed on the issue of when Frank's purported drinking problem started. MM quoted the posts in full on the SOLO thread. Here are the statements changing the onset time.

link

I did not say he was an alcoholic when the collective was reading ATLAS. It happened much later, only beginning in the final years of my relationship with Ayn.

[Technically, she's correct that *she* didn't say in Passion that Frank became an alcoholic in the mid-50s. She only cites an unnamed drinking buddy opining that. What she precisely says is that "[Franks'] drinking began to be a way of life" then.]

link

I left in 1968, and I've been told that his really debilitating drinking began after that time.

Stuttle,

You call that "rescinding" and put the word "rescinding" in Barbara's mouth? Shame on you.

That's as weasely as anything Valliant ever wrote.

The premise is that if information about issues like Frank's drinking were not in the books, the Rand bashers would not bash Rand. So the true intellectual need is to feed them different information and they will stop. But they will keep on bashing Rand so long as "false friends" of Rand feed them Rand-poison. That premise has to stay unstated, though, because it's just plain silly.

I stated that that is not my premise.

I believe you don't believe that crap.

But I do believe you are trying to peddle that crap to the public on purpose and know exactly what you are doing.

Michael

[Daniel Barnes]

I have never heard anything about Frank O'Connor and his drinking habits that would constitute a third narrative.

He began whiling away time drinking in his studio when he became old, was growing senile, and could no longer paint.

I haven't been following this whole debate all that closely I admit. But while there are no end of possible narrative versions, I don't recall this one has being put forward prominently by anyone until now. (BTW I think Robert was referring to the main storylines in play, not the possible alternative scenarios, which are infinite).

Why not? Like attributing excessive drinking to a dysfunctional relationship, this is also a perfectly reasonable hypothesis. People often turn to drink for reasons such as physical decay and the concomitant sense of failing life. "Put the car away; when life fails/What's the good of going to Wales?" as Auden wrote, capturing the feeling perfectly.

I can guess why. Furthermore, I will make a prediction. That should anyone put this new narrative forward and clearly defend it, it will get little or no support from Valliant or the ARI flavoured Objectivists who have put so much time and energy into attacking the Branden/Burns/Heller thesis.

Why not? Because this variation conflicts with their basically idolatrous doctrine. That Rand's husband ended his days whiling away his time drinking alone in his studio is not exactly what John Galt would have done. Further, one has to ask the question where was his "soul mate" (as Valliant calls her) while this was going on? Given that they supposedly shared the same "sense of life", right down to the marrow, did Rand approve of Frank's response to this unfortunate turn of events? And so forth. I believe all these questions mean that this version will prove just as unacceptable to True Believers as the idea he turned to drink in the face of The Affair. But I could be wrong, we'll have to see.

I also can't see how people who are "out to get Rand", which I suppose includes critics like me, would be averse to this version. It seems a fairly realistic scenario (BTW, it's the idolatry that probably gets me about Objectivism even more than the quality of Rand's arguments. That's why, for example, I set my review of Burns' book against the background of True Believer reaction to it) though of course it is unhelpfully mute on the important issue of Frank's reaction to The Affair. As the consequences to others of our "selfish" actions have important implications for the viability of Objectivist ethics, I can see why the issue of the consequences for Frank is a particularly tricky one, and why True Believers like Valliant have had to resort to the "Frank-got-off-on-it" theory to get around it.

Speaking of Valliant's "Frank-got-off-on-it" theory of The Affair, it is curious that this is barely mentioned, as the evidence for this is next to non-existent, even compared to the ambiguous evidence of Frank's drinking. Yet it strikes me as a far more controversial claim, and just as potentially slanderous, being seemingly manufactured from whole cloth by Valliant purely for the purposes of trying to make the situation consistent with Rand's ethics.

Why not?

Edited January 24, 2010 by Daniel Barnes

[Ellen Stuttle]

I see no good reason on earth that you cannot [contact the Blumenthals], being tight with them and all.

Michael, your mistaken belief about my "being tight" with the Blumenthals is one which you have never been provided with any good reason for holding. For one thing, I never had, or ever said I had, extended conversations with Joan except during '79-'80, when she was sitting in on the class I was taking then with Allan. Nor have I ever implied that I've had a continuing relationship with either of them.

For instance, see the following. I've added boldface emphasis so that the key wording is easy to find.

link

[This was part of a reply to Jerry Biggers on January 25, 2008, correcting his misreports about statements regarding Allan made in Barbara's biography.]

What you write about Allan's opining on Ayn's evil is NOT in Barbara's biography. Instead it's a further gloss on something Roy Childs reports in his final interview, conducted by Jeff Walker. It goes significantly farther than what Allan is reported as saying in Jeff Walker's book -- which in turn goes farther than what Allan was saying in 77-80 (after which I lost touch with him). Back then (the late '70s) he said, "I thought the ideas were great and the woman was crazy." He clearly didn't mean "crazy" as in certifiable, instead colloquially. He was negative but not as negative as it sounds as if he became later on.

I question the accuracy of the story Roy Childs tells -- about Allan and Joan arguing that Ayn was evil (on an evening when Roy visited the Blumenthals along with Barbara, who counter-argued, said Roy, that, no Ayn wasn't evil). Maybe, if Barbara reads this, she could say how accurate the report is.

[Why would I need to be asking if I were still in touch with Allan?]

[....]

Long and short: I don't know if Allan really did eventually come to the opinion that Ayn was evil, or if that's a Childs-style exaggeration. But it is not in Barbara's biography.

[Wouldn't I know if I were still in touch with Allan?]

[And why would I have written, a couple posts later, answering a question by Chris Grieb? -- link]

I'm not sure when Barbara and the Blumenthals reconciled. I, too, was at the convention [in '83]. Barbara and Joan had clearly made it up before then, but I don't know how much before.

[barbara replied -- link -- saying that she'd never heard Allan call Rand evil, and telling the story of her and Joan's (and her and Allan's) reconciliation.

The last I saw Allan was just after the election 1980. The last I wrote to him was at the end of 1981. The last I saw Joan was briefly at the Libertarian convention in 1983.

If you find any later date of contact in any of my posts, it's a typo.

I hope you'll drop the false statements about my "being tight" with them.

Ellen

Edited January 24, 2010 by Ellen Stuttle

[Ellen Stuttle]

I love how Stuttle channels Barbara now, talking about her "rescinding" and so forth.

No channeling. I've linked the posts twice, and quoted from them on the issue of the change of story from removals each week to posthumous stash.

The story also changed on the issue of when Frank's purported drinking problem started. MM quoted the posts in full on the SOLO thread. Here are the statements changing the onset time.

link

I did not say he was an alcoholic when the collective was reading ATLAS. It happened much later, only beginning in the final years of my relationship with Ayn.

[Technically, she's correct that *she* didn't say in Passion that Frank became an alcoholic in the mid-50s. She only cites an unnamed drinking buddy opining that. What she precisely says is that "[Franks'] drinking began to be a way of life" then.]

link

I left in 1968, and I've been told that his really debilitating drinking began after that time.

Stuttle,

You call that "rescinding" and put the word "rescinding" in Barbara's mouth? Shame on you.

Well..."rescinding" is a gentle description. She changed the story, making the onset of problem drinking later with each version.

And, no, I didn't put the word "rescinding" in Barbara's mouth.

Ellen

[Ellen Stuttle]

As I mentioned before, Anne Heller wrote (in a reply to Michael Moeller):

I did discuss Frank’s drinking with the Blumenthals. They supported, and support, what I reported in the book.

I think that is unequivocal enough. She names her source and assures us of the agreement of those persons. She has no moral obligation to submit tapes or letters or the contents of any private conversation with them in any form, to defend herself. Anyone who has doubts about that statement is free to check with the Blumenthals themselves, that should be enough.

I think it's equivocal, since it indicates at minimum that the Blumenthals supported and support her internally contradictory claim re Don Ventura (she says that what evidence there is supports Barbara's report on pp. 272-73, which indicates that Ventura was Frank's drinking buddy in the mid-50s; only Heller's evidence is that Ventura didn't meet Frank until 1962) and her confused description of Dupuytren's and what else? Barbara Weiss' assessment? As best I can tell from her last reply to me, all she's saying is that the Blumenthals confirm that Frank drank in the '70s, but then I never had any question on that particular to begin with, only on how much he was drinking, which question I still have.

I agree that she has no moral obligation to submit tapes or letters or the contents of any private conversation with them. Nor do I doubt that they said that Frank drank. I'd like more in the way of specifics of what they saw, especially what Allan saw. But I'm not writing to Allan to ask. So there it is.

Ellen

[Xray]

Heh.

One day M. Xray will learn how the program works. Until then, she will keep saying it doesn't.

I used to believe it was a lost cause, but I believe one day she will actually get it. For no other reason than she keeps trying to make the reality of it fit with the fantasy of it in her head.

All that effort has to pay off some day.

So I try to practice the virtue of patience.

Michael

Michael -

Clearly something in the combination of program and Xray is failing, consistently. I think it's pretty obvious to most of us that it's not the software.

Regards,

Bill P

Speaking as someone who writes software I wouldn't discount that it has a few bugs.

I have written software, also, GS. But if you're wondering about this, read Xray's descriptions of the "software problems" she is encountering. That will make it clear that she is either confused, or attempting to confuse.

Bill P

Remember the discussion on the other thread where you it became clear that you had not understood the algorithm at work here?

I does have bugs, and believe me if it was possible I'd invite both you and MSK over here for a demonstration, so you can see for yourself that the software obviously can't count to five.

Latest example: immeditately before I wrote this post, a few minutes ago, I had gotten the verbatim message:

"You can make 5 more posts today. This restriction is in place until you have 98376 more approved posts".

"Five more posts today" clearly indicates the beginning of a new five-post-cycle, right?

For it explictly says 'five more'.

After writing that one post to you, seconds later, when pushing the reply button to another post (I did this for a test), I get the message:

"You can make 3 more posts until Today, 11:31 AM. This restriction is in place until you have 98375 more approved posts."

This has has happened several times already. Often, I don't even get to make those three left, but when making one of the three, I get the message there's now only one left (instead of two).

I first thought it has to do with couning edtig as posting (I almost always edit my posts), but for the test now I deliberately did not edit, and regardless of that, it counted one post as two.

But on other occasions, it has in fact counted editing as a posting. Mostly, I have not been able to edit the last post in the 'five' series - for the program locked up after the post.

I have also gotten different info on different threads regarding the posts left.

It looks like one part of the software does not know what the other is doing.

It would also interest me how much time posters have now for editing. Didn't MSK change it again recently?

Edited January 24, 2010 by Xray

[Ellen Stuttle]

[....] [P]erhaps [Heller] isn't interested in a dialogue with people who call those they disagree with liars, bitches, etc.* [....]

*This is not to imply that you call Barbara these things, but I haven't heard any objection from you when Perigo does.

I've told him several times that I don't agree with his assessment of Barbara. There's no more point spinning wheels arguing with him about that than there is arguing with MSK's assessment of Perigo, with which I don't agree either.

O'ists do tend to spend a lot of time ripping each other to shreds. Trying to get them to stop would be a futile endeavor.

Ellen