Ayn Rand and the World She Made

[Brant Gaede]

If the Wikipedia affair were not enough, if anyone wants to see how sleazy and dishonest Valliant is in trying to skew public perception right as he is doing it, being caught red-handed so to speak, he is now "answering" Neil Parille's criticisms and even asking him questions. Valliant knows full well that Neil is banned and can't answer. There is even a full thread posted about it from several days ago.

See here and here for now for Valliant's crap. From the looks of things, more is coming.

Does Valliant imagine that people will read that and conclude that Neil didn't answer because he succumbed to Valliant's superior intellect?

What a piece of work.

Michael

I think JV didn't know NP was banned and is reflective of how little he thinks of SOLOP except for his narrow PARC focus. Perigo and Valliant exploiting each other.

--Brant

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I think JV didn't know NP was banned...

Brant,

After that Wikipedia stunt and all the lies, sockpuppets, multiple accounts, and denials until today (blame it all on the wife like a real man), I don't agree with you.

I might have before that mess, but not after.

I think Valliant is playing games now that you blew him out of the water by posting that Neil was banned on both places I linked to.

Michael

[Robert Campbell]

From this quick reply to one of Brant's reminders of Neil's being banned:

http://www.solopassion.com/node/2597#comment-83884

It's obvious that Jim Valliant already knew.

I'll continue to put my money on Messrs. Perigo and Valliant agreeing to the bans in advance.

Robert Campbell

PS. It wouldn't surprise me if Ms. Stuttle also knew in advance.

[Brant Gaede]

SOLOP's down right now. Maybe they're erasing Valliant's two posts. Heh.

--Brant

waiting for SOLOP never to come back up.

maybe Perigo is playing whack-a-mole still and I'll be the next to be whacked

Edited January 26, 2010 by Brant Gaede

[Robert Campbell]

SOLOP is still down, for whatever reason.

If it shut down tomorrow, who would miss it?

Robert Campbell

[9thdoctor]

waiting for SOLOP never to come back up.

If it shut down tomorrow, who would miss it?

Jabba’s going to use these posts as evidence for his speaker banner- book burner - site closer - LDS*– child molester smears.

*Does he think you’re Mormons?

[Brant Gaede]

I think JV didn't know NP was banned...

Brant,

After that Wikipedia stunt and all the lies, sockpuppets, multiple accounts, and denials until today (blame it all on the wife like a real man), I don't agree with you.

I might have before that mess, but not after.

I think Valliant is playing games now that you blew him out of the water by posting that Neil was banned on both places I linked to.

Michael

I replied to both of Valliant's posts in a way that precluded him editing them so maybe subconsciously I agreed with you.

--Brant

getting there

[Ellen Stuttle]

Guys, here's your root problem. Past all the dust and the shouting, you're left with link:

"a man who wasn't there."

Yesterday upon the stair,

I met a man who wasn't there.

He wasn't there again today.

Oh, how I wish he'd go away.

(Other versions, especially of the first line, are cited -- Google "a man who wasn't there.")

Barbara's only supposed witness to Frank's alcoholic, or problem, or escapist, or "excessive," or whatever term you want to use, drinking beginning to be "a way of life" in the mid-50s is a person who, according to Heller, didn't meet Frank until 1962. Thus the only plausible fix for the story, if Heller is right on the chronology, is Jonathan's hypothesis that Ventura was relaying second-hand accounts from people who were drinking with Frank in bars in the mid-50s. Additionally, the only mention Heller makes of Ventura and Frank drinking together is at the Russian Tea Room after art classes at the Art Students League on Monday nights.

Meanwhile, Ventura doesn't answer any inquiries, and Barbara doesn't present her statement from Ventura, which she's said was a written statement.

At the moment, there is no case for Frank's having fled from "an intolerable reality" in the mid-50s to a neighborhood bar. Evidence is needed for a positive case.

There's where things stand, however much screaming is employed in disregard of the absence of a witness.

Ellen

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Stuttle,

Blah blah blah.

Argument by repetition again.

So let me repeat, too. There is also the little issue of you, Valliant and the SLOP peanut gallery attributing Barbara's words with meanings she doesn't use.

One day, if you repeat it enough, you might come to understand that "way of life" is a pretty vague term, unless a person happens to be a zealot or promote a hidden agenda. Then you can say it means whatever you want it to mean. (Kinda like you're doing now.)

btw - The other people who are not there, but this time from your end, are the Blumenthals. You were so tight with them (as you never tired of claiming and insinuating), and now, in a surge of alleged good manners, you can't destroy their winter happiness with an email. (Even though Anne Heller obviously can talk to them about Frank's drinking without destroying their winter happiness.) That's so big of you. Maybe all scholars should adopt your selective standards when telling the world what their sources think and would say about this and that.

In fact, one should be careful with this and that, don't you think?

You are so careful to baby the feelings of the Blumenthals (without them asking for this, of course), yet you have no compunction about blah blah blahing about Don Ventura's drinking all over the place. What about his winter happiness? What about his privacy?

If he was an alcoholic and he did attend AA meetings, does the word anonymity mean anything to you? Like in Alcoholics Anonymous? Does it not occur to you that an alcoholic constantly runs the risk of relapse, so maybe he doesn't welcome public discussion and inquiries about his drinking because it might lead him to the risk of relapsing? Or maybe he asked Barbara to not give him too much exposure for the same reason?

I don't know if he did or not, or if this is his issue or not, but I personally do know many alcoholics who have relapsed from bringing their issues to the public. Especially when they run into callous vain people like you. One of the reasons AA holds closed meetings is to keep people like you out.

Would you ever think of something like that? Of course not. You have your vanity and newly embraced hatred and zealotry to feed.

In addition to being wrong about Barbara's meanings, your hypocrisy and lack of manners is really out there.

Michael

[Neil Parille]

Michael,

Although I agree with you on most PAR/PARC related issues, I think Ellen 2.0 has a point, even if her skepticism is unwarranted.

Since Don Ventura apparently didn't meet Frank until 1962 I think Barbara should give us a fuller description of his statement or make it available. I have no inside information on this, but I suspect Jonathan's surmise is correct.

In 2008 in TPJVC I said that parties should make available, confidentiality permitting, witness statements. This was before the wrinkle about when DV met Frank.

I assume DV knows about the controversy. I assume he would correct the record if Barbara is in error. If DV has asked Barbara for privacy, she could report this.

-Neil Parille

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Neil,

I have no problem with wondering about a minor time difference. As reported, it does exist. There are many possibilities that can explain it, but ultimately they will all be speculation unless Barbara, someone else who has examined the material, or Ventura himself makes a statement.

I do have a problem with claiming that the minor time difference means one thing and one thing only, and nothing else is plausible: that Barbara made up the story about Frank's drinking to damage Ayn Rand's reputation.

Or even worse, calling that agenda "novelization" and other euphemisms.

That crap is being sold under the guise of "quest for truth" and I'm tearing the cover off of it. People like Stuttle can peddle it on SLOP for their own vain reasons to the applause of fellow-haters. Over here I intend to make sure that dirty little agenda stays in the clarity of the light of day.

For all to see and judge for themselves.

Every time it comes up.

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

I think JV didn't know NP was banned...

Brant,

After that Wikipedia stunt and all the lies, sockpuppets, multiple accounts, and denials until today (blame it all on the wife like a real man), I don't agree with you.

I might have before that mess, but not after.

I think Valliant is playing games now that you blew him out of the water by posting that Neil was banned on both places I linked to.

Michael

I replied to both of Valliant's posts in a way that precluded him editing them so maybe subconsciously I agreed with you.

--Brant

getting there

Well SOLOP has finally come back on line with some very weak comments by LP and JV. LP has threatened to ban me, sort of, apropos his new "flouncing" criterion, but has assured all and sundry (me especially) that it will be arbitrarily applied, which of course is an aspect of bullying. What really happened is I stuck a stick into the wheels of Valliant's two-wheeled locomotion. They both know but do not acknowledge this.

--Brant

[Robert Campbell]

Barbara's only supposed witness to Frank's alcoholic, or problem, or escapist, or "excessive," or whatever term you want to use, drinking beginning to be "a way of life" in the mid-50s is a person who, according to Heller, didn't meet Frank until 1962. Thus the only plausible fix for the story, if Heller is right on the chronology, is Jonathan's hypothesis that Ventura was relaying second-hand accounts from people who were drinking with Frank in bars in the mid-50s. Additionally, the only mention Heller makes of Ventura and Frank drinking together is at the Russian Tea Room after art classes at the Art Students League on Monday nights.

Meanwhile, Ventura doesn't answer any inquiries, and Barbara doesn't present her statement from Ventura, which she's said was a written statement.

At the moment, there is no case for Frank's having fled from "an intolerable reality" in the mid-50s to a neighborhood bar. Evidence is needed for a positive case.

There's where things stand, however much screaming is employed in disregard of the absence of a witness.

Look, it would be good to know in greater detail what Don Ventura said. Including what Frank O'Connor might have told him about his drinking prior to 1962.

I certiainly will not make any further claims about Frank's drinking in the 1950s without knowing more about Mr. Ventura's testimony than I currently do.

But this "little man who wasn't there" chant wins a prize for chutzpah.

For quite some time, Ms. Stuttle's new-found ally, Jim Valliant, alleged that Barbara Branden had no witnesses to any drinking by Frank O'Connor; i.e., that she had made Don Ventura up.

Has Mr. Valliant admitted his error? Apologized for his allegation?

Has Ms. Stuttle admonished him to admit his error?

Nope, that's not part of her ball game.

What's more, we know from Jennifer Burns' book that there's an interview with Don Ventura in the Ayn Rand Archives.

Did Mr. Valliant bother to ask to hear this interview during any of his visits to the Archives?

If for any reason he didn't know about it when he first arrived, or it wasn't available yet, has he asked for it more recently?

Has Ms. Stuttle admonished Mr. Valliant about checking up on material right there in the Archives where, he would have us believe, he still wields an "Access All Areas"?

Nope, that's not part of her ball game either.

You know, if it's reasonable to ask Barbara Branden for a copy of the written statement that Don Ventura provided to her, it's reasonable to ask for the complete email exchange between Ellen Stuttle and Jim Valliant concerning Wikipedia editing done from the Valliants' IP address.

After all, if Ms. Stuttle is telling the truth about the exchange, there's nothing in it that will make Jim Valliant look bad.

Who knows? Maybe there isn't even anything in it that will make Ellen Stuttle look bad.

Robert Campbell

[Ellen Stuttle]

You know, if it's reasonable to ask Barbara Branden for a copy of the written statement that Don Ventura provided to her, it's reasonable to ask for the complete email exchange between Ellen Stuttle and Jim Valliant concerning Wikipedia editing done from the Valliants' IP address.

No, it isn't. Whole different category of circumstances.

Ellen

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Different categories?

I see Stuttle self-serving and sucking up to Valliant-Perigo all over both.

That's at least one shared category.

Michael

[9thdoctor]

(I'm reminded of a line I found very funny in *I, Claudius*, but I won't repeat it.)

No, no, no, no, no, you can’t make a reference like that without spelling it out.

Ellen, please...I'm asking nicely, but if you keep holding back...

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[Robert Campbell]

No, it isn't. Whole different category of circumstances.

Bullshit.

Robert Campbell

[Daniel Barnes]

At the moment, there is no case for Frank's having fled from "an intolerable reality" in the mid-50s to a neighborhood bar. Evidence is needed for a positive case.

There's where things stand, however much screaming is employed in disregard of the absence of a witness.

Well, I for one am not really getting why this proposed time difference is very important, nor why a witness would make any difference to you here.

As I understand it, your interest in the date of Frank's drinking is to try to falsify a larger story; the narrative out there that Ayn Rand was a "killer of people." It seems to me you've chosen a very indirect route, via a specific issue the facts of which seem pretty unreliable as a whole. Furthermore, your replacement hypothesis leaves most of the important issues unanswered anyway eg: what was the effect on Frank of Rand's decision to take a younger lover right in front of him? This is the point where the ethical rubber hits the road, surely? So as I said before, unless you've got a more comprehensive theory I'm picking that you're not going to get anywhere very decisive.

Further, we already have a witness as to the main thesis - in fact the author of that remark, Barbara Weiss - who had the dual advantage of both daily close, personal contact over a period of decades and who was not ideologically committed to the Orthodox Objectivist view of Rand.

This is just the sort of testimony one would hope to find, one would think. It's the equivalent of having the view of someone who drank with Frank, or was with him when he didn't, every day for years. And it applies to the master thesis that's in play, if you like, not one of its rather oblique corollaries.

Thus I would say this would be extremely valuable, and worthy of serious consideration.

Yet it seems to me you've simply waved away Weiss' eyewitness assessment, which was based on years of daily dealings one-to one, aside in favour of what seems to be mostly your own handful impressions from a distance. AFAIK you didn't meet Rand, right? Let alone work with her on a close daily basis for years. I can't help but think it's because it's a powerful falsification of your personal beliefs about Rand - testimony far stronger than anything yet summoned by anyone in this third-level issue of the date of Frank's drinking.

I'll tell you what: I'm pretty all out critical of Rand, and if someone like Weiss (as opposed to Binswanger, say, or Peikoff) had stood up and said, "no, Rand was a really terrific person in every respect" or "she's not as bad as they say, it's all been exaggerated" then I for one would take that seriously. But she didn't. In fact, what she said basically corroborated the main narrative that has emerged over time.

Would you mind clarifying your reasoning here? Why would you accept, say, (should it ever be forthcoming) Ventura's testimony if you don't take Weiss'?

Edited January 27, 2010 by Daniel Barnes

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

As I understand it, your interest in the date of Frank's drinking is to try to falsify a larger story; the narrative out there that Ayn Rand was a "killer of people."

Daniel,

Actually, the larger story for Stuttle is that Barbara Branden was out to get Rand by making up stories, especially about Frank's drinking. She explicitly said so over on SLOP somewhere, although she did not use those words (I think the euphemism was "novelizing" or some such BS).

The subtext is that she read PARC and saw the light, although she would never say it that way. Perigo and Valliant ate it up, of course.

I believe combating the Rand "killer of people" theme falls only after those two in the hierarchy, and only in terms of sucking up to Perigo and Valliant. I have not seen any evidence from her posts that combating this theme really resonates with any fundamental Stuttleness.

Michael

[Robert Campbell]

As I understand it, your interest in the date of Frank's drinking is to try to falsify a larger story; the narrative out there that Ayn Rand was a "killer of people." It seems to me you've chosen a very indirect route, via a specific issue the facts of which seem pretty unreliable as a whole. Furthermore, your replacement hypothesis leaves most of the important issues unanswered anyway eg: what was the effect on Frank of Rand's decision to take a younger lover right in front of him? This is the point where the ethical rubber hits the road, surely? So as I said before, unless you've got a more comprehensive theory I'm picking that you're not going to get anywhere very decisive.

Well, the most straightforward explanation for Ms. Stuttle's enlistment in the War of Frankian Sobriety is not the one that Ms. Stuttle has kept giving.

For if Ms. Stuttle were to emerge victorious from the War of Frankian Sobriety, she would, as you noted, still be a long long way from proving that Ayn Rand was Not Insane, or whatever she presently claims to imagine is "the point of PARC."

But if one wishes to obtain the support of Lindsay Perigo—and stick it to Barbara Branden—the War of Frankian Sobriety becomes crucial, on account of its apparent kinship with the War of Perigonian Sobriety.

Robert Campbell

[Neil Parille]

Robert,

Jim Valliant claimed there was no Don Ventura. He claimed Barbara made up the other witnesses. He claimed Barbara lied when she said she heard to the typewriter story from Rand. He claimed Barbara lied when she said she met Rand in 81. He claimed Fern Brown lied about having seen Rand take her name from a typewriter. He claimed Rand was telling the truth when she implied NB financially exploited her.

As you note, where is Ellen 2.0's admonishment of JV for any of the crapola in his book? This is garbage that deserves to be deleted, not "edited."

If Ellen 2.0 wants to withdraw from the fray that's fine by me. Yet she is happy to mix it up with Anne Heller and, I imagine, Jennifer Burns and Barbara.

Yet when it comes to Jim Valliant it's one big "blank out."

-Neil Parille

[Daniel Barnes]

For me the "point of PARC" was always first and foremost an exercise in Rand idolatry, performed by a cringing sycophant. I never thought of it as anything else.

The vilification of TheBrandensTM functioned only as a corollary of this basic premise ie in order to have got one over the Greatest Genius of All Time, TheBrandensTM could only be the Evilest Evil Geniuses of All Time.

If it was merely out to get TheBrandensTM whilst trying to paint a realistic portrait of Rand, it would have been a completely different book. Note how entirely missing from Valliant's absurdist storyline is anything resembling a credible situation; say, of the effect of a powerful intellect and personality such as Rand's on a young, ambitious, star-struck acolyte such as Branden, or the classic cultic dynamic where the leader often takes attractive concubines from the faithful (Burns is entirely right when she says that expect this common situation to not apply just because Rand is a woman is sexist). Also missing is any kind of believeable description of Rand's partner's reaction to her affair, nor the commonplace observation that these sorts of things predictably end in tears, with a lot of wrong on both sides. Or even an admission that we really never know what goes on between two people, and that there may well have been something between them both that somehow got lost (likewise with Frank).

Instead we get a bizarre fairytale that it's hard to credit a grownup would believe, let alone commit to print. Its real value, as I've said before, is not the odd good point Valliant might make here or there in terms of inaccuracies in the Branden accounts. That's like wearing a clown suit because you like the way the buttons are sewn. No, the real value from PARC is the insight you get into the cultist mind. In that, it's freaking MRI-like.

Edited January 27, 2010 by Daniel Barnes

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Daniel,

I agree with the exercise in Rand idolatry, but with the main focus on scapegoating. One should not downplay the critical component of scapegoating to the cultist mind.

You simply can't have a cult without a scapegoat. At least I've never seen one. In my understanding, trashing a common enemy is one of the main glues, if not the main one, that do the heavy lifting in holding a cult together. The promise of heaven might be the attraction, but burning the devil's servants to the stake is what makes people stay and watch and toe the line.

It would be interesting to make a statistical survey of something in PARC: a comparison between the entries of syrupy fawning over Rand's superhuman prowess and/or angelic blind innocence against the comments bashing the beyond-redemption evil Brandens.

From my read, but without counting, some examples of the syrupy fawning and blind innocence might stand out because of their sheer absurdity, but the Branden bashing wins hands-down.

The book is really an exercise in scapegoating the Brandens from the cult-like lens of Rand idolatry.

Michael

[Robert Campbell]

Ellen Stuttle has indignantly rejected this formulation, more than once now, but I see the point of PARC as

(1) The moral perfection of Ayn Rand

(2) The Satanicity of TheBrandens™

As in apocalyptic religion (e.g., The Final Combat of the Sons of Light and the Sons of Darkness), each requires the other.

Robert Campbell

[Roger Bissell]

Robert,

Jim Valliant claimed there was no Don Ventura. He claimed Barbara made up the other witnesses. He claimed Barbara lied when she said she heard to the typewriter story from Rand. He claimed Barbara lied when she said she met Rand in 81. He claimed Fern Brown lied about having seen Rand take her name from a typewriter. He claimed Rand was telling the truth when she implied NB financially exploited her.

As you note, where is Ellen 2.0's admonishment of JV for any of the crapola in his book? This is garbage that deserves to be deleted, not "edited."

If Ellen 2.0 wants to withdraw from the fray that's fine by me. Yet she is happy to mix it up with Anne Heller and, I imagine, Jennifer Burns and Barbara.

Yet when it comes to Jim Valliant it's one big "blank out."

-Neil Parille

Neil, there's a sure-fire best-seller there, just waiting to be written: Ellen 1.0 + Ellen 2.0 = Zero. How about it? <g>

REB