Ayn Rand and the World She Made

[Ellen Stuttle]

For Ms. Stuttle's indignant denial that PARC is about the moral perfection of Ayn Rand and the Satanicity of TheBrandens™, see

http://www.solopassion.com/node/6946&page=2#comment-80403

It should not have been necessary for me to quote Ms. Stuttle back to herself. She knows what she said.

Robert,

You amaze me.

Here, in full, is the post you linked as evidence of my "indignant denial that PARC is about the moral perfection of Ayn Rand and the Satanicity of TheBrandens™":

link

Robert, what do you hope the distorting will accomplish?

Maybe you think that if you distort often enough, even I will be convinced that I really think the version of my views you report.

Re this:

"In pushing for the moral perfection of Ayn Rand, the cosmic evil of TheBrandens ™, and the moral permissibility of lying to foil "enemies of Objectivism," Mr. Valliant relied heavily on the Strongbox in the Dungeon assumption."

Again, that's you putting things in a way which basically invents the opponent against whom you can look as if you're scoring. There was very long discussion about the issue of AR's "moral perfection" and what PARC was and wasn't arguing on the issue. Further, Valliant explicitly denied placing the Brandens in the sort of immensely evil category you talk as if he was placing them. And the "Strongbox in the Dungeon" assumption is yours.

Specifically what further evidence about trials do you think Burns provided aside from some further quotes (such as a letter from Edith Efron)?

Heller might have provided some substantial documentation of what occurred in the supposed trials. I don't know yet; I only today received the book.

Ellen

I don't see the post you cite as matching your description of it. I remember the feeling with which I wrote it -- the same sort of bemusement I feel at your citing that as your evidence.

Her request is even more disingenuous than a lot of her posts on that SOLOP thread were.

Whether Ms. Stuttle continues to post here is up to her and to MSK.

Whether I answer any of her posts here is up to me.

I will not reply to her in the future, on this subject or any other.

Ms. Stuttle needs to return to SOLOP, where her critics are banned or moderated, she continues not to say anything about the decisions to ban or to moderate, and Messrs. Perigo and Valliant are waiting to be kissed up to.

Robert Campbell

My critics aren't banned or moderated here, though possibly MSK will honor what I take to be your wish that I be banned from posting here.

Ellen

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

For Ms. Stuttle's indignant denial that PARC is about the moral perfection of Ayn Rand and the Satanicity of TheBrandens™, see

http://www.solopassi...2#comment-80403

It should not have been necessary for me to quote Ms. Stuttle back to herself. She knows what she said.

Robert,

You amaze me.

Here, in full, is the post you linked as evidence of my "indignant denial that PARC is about the moral perfection of Ayn Rand and the Satanicity of TheBrandens™":

link

Robert, what do you hope the distorting will accomplish?

Maybe you think that if you distort often enough...

Indignant.

Again, that's you putting things in a way which basically invents the opponent against whom you can look as if you're scoring. There was very long discussion about the issue of AR's "moral perfection" and what PARC was and wasn't arguing on the issue. Further, Valliant explicitly denied placing the Brandens in the sort of immensely evil category you talk as if he was placing them. And the "Strongbox in the Dungeon" assumption is yours.

Denial.

This ain't rocket science.

Michael

[Ellen Stuttle]

I once had an encounter with a very rude person in my only visit ever to the office of The Ayn Rand Letter. I wrote about it back in 2005 in one of my first posts to online Rand-land (see here). From the descriptions I have read and timing, that rude person could very well have been Barbara Weiss. But really I can't say with 100% certainty.

I've wondered ever since several years ago when I first read one of your descriptions of the occurrence if the person you encountered was Barbara Weiss. I never heard tales of Elayne Kalberman acting as you describe. I heard multiple tales of Barbara Weiss doing so. Plus I overheard happening a number of examples when Barbara Weiss was attending lecture courses I was taking (two and about a third of Leonard Peikoff's courses and Allan's music course).

Other possibilities in regard to your experience are that the person was one of the various assistants who came and went over the years at the publications office or that you misinterpreted the tone and/or wording of what the person said to you.

Regarding your suggestion that I had an encounter with Barbara Weiss myself, I didn't. I avoided her. Probably the only direct words I ever exchanged with her, if any, would have been "Hello" on one of the two occasions when I had some business to do at the publications office. Elayne was at the counter both of those times and handled the procedure (once a subscription renewal payment, the other time replacing a couple missing copies of The Objectivist).

More on Barbara Weiss in some other posts.

Ellen

[Ellen Stuttle]

MSK mentions -- link -- that he "tried to do a search on Barbara Weiss to see why she is so discredited in S[t]uttle's eyes."

I don't know if he was specifically looking for my posts, or if he was generically searching for anything on the web about the Barbara Weiss who was associated with Ayn Rand.

Someone searching for the latter will come up practically empty-handed except for recent references which quote Anne Heller quoting Barbara Weiss' verdict on Rand.

Nor is Weiss mentioned by name in the index of Passion, or in that of The Ayn Rand Cult. Best I recall, the only material Barbara Branden gives from Weiss is in a passage about Frank's drinking, where she doesn't name those she's quoting. (She later, in posts, identified her sources.) Nor do I recall Nathaniel Branden giving any report which might have come from Weiss in his memoirs. Nor Jeff Walker in The Ayn Rand Cult. (Weiss might have been dead by the time that book was written; I'm not sure when she died.)

Thus for most of the people on this list, Barbara Weiss is someone whom they've hardly ever heard of prior to Heller's quoting Weiss -- not always by name in the text, but identified in the endnotes -- as the source of some particularly negative comments about Rand. And yet several people seem to me to be not only ready but eager to place strong credence on the assessments of a witness about whom they know next to nothing.

Not even really how constant and close a relationship Weiss had with Rand. She's described by Heller as having been Rand's "devoted" secretary of 15 years. But what's the basis for the 15-years-secretary description? Weiss was business manager of the publications from 1968 to their end. I'd assume that she was at the publication's offices much of her working time, not at the O'Connors' apartment. A number of the reports I've heard of exchanges with her were placed at the offices. Is it believed that she was a more regular presence at the apartment than Leonard Peikoff and others who were frequent visitors? If so, why?

More basically, is it assumed that her opinion would be trustworthy?

I doubt that most here place much credence on Leonard Peikoff's opinion. Leonard Peikoff is generally viewed by OL members as slavish in his devotion to Rand. Suppose Barbara Weiss had been interviewed in 1974 or 1975. Suppose she'd spoken in even more flattering terms than Leonard Peikoff does. Would she have been trustworthy then? What if she'd said blistering things about Barbara Branden? I'm not able to vouch for this from directly hearing Barbara Weiss' mid-70s negativity toward Barbara Branden. However, from what I was told by some people who knew Weiss, her remarks about BB might have made her eventual assessment of Rand seem gentle. The comments had a snarlish spiteful quality that I never heard from any of the others who'd remained loyal. There was also the way Weiss acted toward Rand. I found this icky to see, and, again, different from what I saw with any of the others. Oh, sure, they deferred to Rand, but they didn't act in the self-debasing way I thought Barbara Weiss acted.

Those are a couple reasons why I think she would have felt a desire for revenge. Another is because of possible guilt over the unfairness she sometimes exhibited in letters she wrote intercepting on Rand's behalf. I saw letters from her in which she spoke with a harshness unnecessary for the purpose.

Another is because of possible guilt over the timing and the description of the reasons why she left. Was she harboring negativity before her sudden reversion of opinion after Joan and Elayne left but keeping it under her lid?

Also there's the nature of her statements.

Robert Campbell asks:

So what makes Barbara Weiss any different, from Ms. Stuttle's point of view, from

• Hank Holzer

• Erika Holzer

• Philip Smith

• Kay Nolte Smith

• Allan Blumenthal

• Joan Mitchell Blumenthal

• Elayne Kalberman

• Bob Hessen?

Have any of the others made such claims as that Frank "never got kindness from [Ayn]," that they "knew she didn't love him"? (The first statement might have been meant as localized to the final decade of Frank's life, since it's quoted in the context of Ayn's trying to give Frank psycho-epistemological training. But even if it's meant as localized to Frank's last years, I would mistrust someone reporting that. I saw Ayn and Frank together as late as '76 and thought her tenderness toward him was palpable.)

Have any of the others made so extreme a claim as that they "[came to] look on her as a killer of people"?

(There is a report, via Roy Childs' last interview, of an evening when Roy Childs and Barbara were at the Blumenthals and Roy described the Blumenthals as arguing that Ayn was evil, and Barbara as counterarguing that she wasn't. When questioned about this report, which always sounded suspicious to me, Barbara indicated that it wasn't accurate, at least in regard to Allan -- link. I interpret her remark as not accepting Roy's description of the evening.)

Jonathan inquires:

What does "killer of people" mean? From reading some of Rand's own comments, as well as those of her dedicated supporters, I get the impression that she could be, at times, what could be called a "killer of people." I can't see anyone claiming that that side of her was the essence of who she was during her entire life, but I think it would be foolish to deny the existence of that side of her.

I think of all of the negative "philosophizing" and "psychologizing" that Rand did of people she didn't like (or whose works she didn't like), most notably some of the greatest creators of all time. If, in her own writings, speeches and Q&A sessions, she could hiss with contempt over some of the world's greatest man-made beauty, I don't find it unreasonable that someone who was close to her for a decade or more might frequently see such unjust and disproportionate contempt aimed at lesser mortals.

I wouldn't use such a description as "killer of people" for the contempt Jonathan is talking about, and that isn't what I take Barbara Weiss' description to mean. The context from which the quote is cited speaks of Ayn as "just robb[ing] [Frank] of everything" and of Leonard Peikoff being "destroyed" and being "a robot at the end." As much as some of the people here dislike Leonard Peikoff, do you think that description is fair? Weiss is also said by Heller, though this isn't given as a direct quote, to have "decided that Rand was not, after all, unconscious of the turbulence and pain she had caused in the lives of people who had cared for her, including Frank."

The details adduced in support of the "killer of people" phrase make it sound to me like an accusation of maliciousness. The tone coloration I get is something I *would* find appropriate applied to Lonnie Leonard, but not to Ayn Rand.

Ellen

[Brant Gaede]

Poor revenge driven Barbara Weiss. What a hateful, horrible person. Why she once told her husband to leave their home so she could get it on with someone else!

--Brant

[Neil Parille]

Ellen,

You write:

Have any of the others made such claims as that Frank "never got kindness from [Ayn]," that they "knew she didn't love him"? (The first statement might have been meant as localized to the final decade of Frank's life, since it's quoted in the context of Ayn's trying to give Frank psycho-epistemological training. But even if it's meant as localized to Frank's last years, I would mistrust someone reporting that. I saw Ayn and Frank together as late as '76 and thought her tenderness toward him was palpable.)

Have any of the others made so extreme a claim as that they "[came to] look on her as a killer of people"?

Maybe not, but I believe Dr. Blumenthal and Prof. Hessen have said that Barbara Branden was too easy on Rand.

-Neil Parille

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

From what I understand, we should automatically assume that Barbara Weiss was a horrid liar and Rand-toady of the worse kind, then later out for revenge against Rand, unless someone can prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that she had good character. And the reason we should adopt this attitude of "guilty until proven innocent" is because someone who did not know her can speculate all over the map about her.

Sounds like Valliant's boneheaded Research-And-Destroy disinformation method to me, with speculation replacing the research part (as is also typical of Valliant).

As for speculation, I think I'll go with Rand's judgment of keeping Weiss around for 15 years. That has to count for something.

Anne Heller's mentions of Barbara Weiss and quotes from her come from a taped interview conducted by Barbara Branden on September 25, 1983. (See footnote to p. 386 given on p. 523 of Ayn Rand and the World She Made.) Anne probably heard this interview in the material bought by Marc Schwalb in Barbara Branden and Robert Hessen's auction. (See the OL thread on the auction for a list of contents and Marc's posts mentioning that he bought Barbara's material--start here.)

I do know why Barbara Weiss needs to be discredited by Stuttle, though. It's because Barbara Branden's taped interview with her is the main source of material from her. And Stuttle needs to discredit Barbara at all costs to suck up to Objectivist Liar and Hater Lindsay Perigo.

Here's an interesting thought. Let's take the premise that Barbara Weiss was a scumbag out for revenge. That means that Ayn Rand's capacity to judge the character of those who accompanied her for years is nonexistent. Since Rand was deceived by Nathaniel for years in midlife, and he was in her bed, then deceived by Barbara Weiss for 15 years after that, and she was her personal secretary, what does this say about the people who stayed with her until the end? Could they not deceive her, also?

Since Rand was such a terrible judge of character (according to this standard), what makes her a good judge of those who knew her and now speak in her name and allegedly "defend her honor"? This is a serious double-standard: Rand was a good judge of those who only speak well of her and a poor judge (and victim) of those who criticize her.

I wouldn't use that standard for anyone else--ever--so I see no reason to use it for Ayn Rand.

Michael

[Robert Campbell]

There's already a place where boneheads are welcomed—given encouragement, in fact.

It's called SOLOP.

And it's mighty quiet over there just now.

Maybe boneheads are bored with the company of other boneheads.

Robert Campbell

[Peter]

James S. Valliant, reviewing Cox’s “The Woman and the Dynamo: Isabel Paterson and the Idea of America,“ writes:

“Among its many virtues, 'The Woman and the Dynamo' observes an error made by Rand's less-then-credible biographer, Barbara Branden, who wrote that both Paterson and Rose Wilder Lane had been "introduced" to Rand by the writer Channing Pollock in 1940.”

End quote

Thank you Robert Campbell for supplying that link to Solop. I saw the printer friendly button, but worried about cookies that have been plaguing my computer (258 of them) so I copied it from the bottom up, a line at a time, pasted that to a ‘new’ hotmail letter then, copied that cleansed version to Word. It actually captured James Valliant’ picture.

I am glad I read that. I see the agenda everyone is talking about. A good present for BB would be a dart board with James’ picture on it. Ask, and I will sent it as an attachment with the review.

I truly don’t ‘own’ this thread but not knowing what I am talking about has never stopped me. Of course, if Barbara Branden had had more recourse to Ayn’s journals and letters when she was writing “The Passion of Ayn Rand,” then some of the “remembered” anecdotes might change slightly, and BB could still modify any re-printings, if she had the desire. When PAR came out, I was astonished and thankful. If her account is off other versions, so what? It was, and is, a powerful history through HER EYES.

My prediction is this: Ayn Rand’s influence will increase. In the years to come, Barbara Branden will stand tall in all future writings about Rand. If Isabel Paterson is given a page, Barbara will be given fifty pages.

If Valliant had left out that quote, criticizing Barbara Branden, and just mentioned the facts as he sees them based on additional knowledge, his review would have been better.

That site is strange. “Flounced?” Isn’t the SOLO "Passion" in its title referring to Barbara Branden’s book?

Semper cogitans fidele,

Peter Taylor

[Robert Campbell]

Peter,

SOLOP is definitely a strange site.

I think Isabel Paterson will get more recognition in the future, but no one's going to erase Barbara Branden from the history books.

"Flouncing" is what divas do when they stomp off in a huff. Lindsay Perigo, no stranger to melodrama himself, likes to accuse everyone else of flouncing.

The Passion in SOLOPassion is not inspired by Barbara's book. Perigo was already on the warpath against her when he and Joe Rowlands split up and SOLOP started. I assume it means "rational passion," which is Perigo's codeword for his latest tantrum.

Robert Campbell

[Daniel Barnes]

More basically, is it assumed that her opinion would be trustworthy?

I think your post above summarises some of the fundamental problems in the way you’re approaching this, so I’ll break it down a little and perhaps these will become clear.

The way you put it, the evidence of her untrustworthiness seems to consist of:

1) Ellen: Leonard Peikoff is generally viewed by OL members as slavish in his devotion to Rand. Suppose Barbara Weiss had been interviewed in 1974 or 1975. Suppose she'd spoken in even more flattering terms than Leonard Peikoff does. Would she have been trustworthy then?”

First, this view of Peikoff is hardly limited to "OL members”, I’m not sure why you’d say that. Second, imaginary counterfactuals of what she might possibly say don’t undermine in the least the reliability of what she actually did say. All they do here is test people’s reaction to her statements.

Now, there is no doubt that witness testimony is particularly difficult around religious and political organizations, cults and other movements where the moral qualities of the leader are often deeply entwined with the moral qualities the followers have embraced; hence it’s difficult for them to see the leader objectively. This does make finding reliable testimony difficult, as I’ve said.

That’s why ideally what you’d want to find is someone who’s no longer associated with the movement, no longer holds those beliefs, but still has long and close association. Barbara Weiss fits these criteria pretty well. Hence it would have been good for the counter-narrative Valliant is promoting if she’d testified that Rand was a terrific person and that there’s been a lot of lies about the way Rand treated people.

But she didn’t. Instead she confirmed what has emerged as the main narrative, and did so in pretty unequivocal terms.

2) Ellen:“What if she'd said blistering things about Barbara Branden?”

Well, she might have. But unless we know a: what they were and b: whether they were true or not, this has exactly nil bearing on her trustworthiness as a witness.

We know neither a. nor b.

3) Ellen: There was also the way Weiss acted toward Rand. I found this icky to see, and, again, different from what I saw with any of the others. Oh, sure, they deferred to Rand, but they didn't act in the self-debasing way I thought Barbara Weiss acted.”

Once again, while you may have a good deal of confidence in your own judgement, just because you found her "icky" won’t persuade many others that she’s a liar. Especially if you didn't even know her well enough to speak to.

4) Ellen: Those are a couple reasons why I think she would have felt a desire for revenge.”

Actually so far you haven’t presented "a couple" of reasons why she would want "revenge." No one would want "revenge" themselves on Ayn Rand for 1) or 2)). 1) is an imaginary counterfactual, and 2) is about Barbara Branden. There’s 3), but even that seems very unclear: Weiss would want "revenge" for acting in a self-abasing way around Rand? I’m not sure what you’re trying to say here.

It’s things like this that give the impression you’re running way ahead of yourself.

5) Ellen: Another is because of possible guilt over the unfairness she sometimes exhibited in letters she wrote intercepting on Rand's behalf. I saw letters from her in which she spoke with a harshness unnecessary for the purpose.

Like the above, while you may think this is compelling, I think most people will find this simply improbable psychological speculation. Weiss is getting “revenge” on Rand because she (Weiss) wrote harshly in replying to some letters? This doesn't really seem sufficient.

6) Another is because of possible guilt over the timing and the description of the reasons why she left. Was she harboring negativity before her sudden reversion of opinion after Joan and Elayne left but keeping it under her lid?

Once again, who knows? Neither you nor I do. We can say that she was “harbouring negativity”, because she did in fact make negative statements about Rand. But it throws no light at all on the point at issue, which is whether it was Rand's fault that she felt negative towards her.

7) Ellen: Also there's the nature of her statements….

Which are certainly harsh. Which is why we put them in to the context of the rest of what we know about Rand and what others have said about her. And when we do, as I’ve said, it tends to support the main narrative that has emerged about Rand. And even leaving aside entirely the vagaries of testimony, we can also simply look at how Rand acted to see whether Weiss’ attitude might be justified. As Brant noted in one of his better remarks above, we can get a good sense of the truth of Weiss’ statement simply by looking at what Rand did, on a weekly basis for years, to the man she claimed to have loved the most. I think this plain fact gives us an undeniable insight into Rand as a person – and that most people would agree that’s a truly “killer” thing to do.

So there is in fact some pretty very powerful evidence to back Weiss’ broad remark up. You personally may not like what Weiss says, but if The Case Against Weiss consists of what you’re presented so far it’s hard to see why anyone would take much notice of it, let alone be a derailment of her viewpoint. It's not just a case of people not accepting your arguments because they're biased etc. It's because what you've put forward is just weak. I’m sorry, but there it is. If you’ve got better, it would be good to hear it.

BTW I think the problem with your discussion of Frank's drinking is slightly different. The key problem there is you haven't connected your preferred possibility - that Frank whiled away his later years drinking alone in the studio - back to any larger storyline that's being put forward pro or contra Rand's personality, and in turn the consequences of her ethical theories, which are the things you say you want to defend. I suggest that until you do that most people will be puzzled as to what you consider to be the truth of those issues.

Now , a brief digression on a minor disagreement I have with Burns.

She says, rightly I think, that we view the Rand/Branden relationship through via some sexist assumptions. That is, we would not find it anywhere near as remarkable if Rand had been an older male leader, and Branden a young female devotee. I quite agree with her on this.

However, I would make the point that in such a counterfactual we would still view the male Rand as a callous, cold hearted brute. Because that’s the way people would see a man who dismissed his devoted wife from the apartment every week so that he could have sex with his sexy young cookie.

And if the followers of that man’s cult of personality tried to justify his actions by saying the wife “got off on it” too, the desperate transparency of this would be hooted down. Putting such an argument would pretty much entail the destruction of their credibility.

Yet strangely in this case, no-one seems to want to mention it.

Edited January 29, 2010 by Daniel Barnes

[Jonathan]

I doubt that most here place much credence on Leonard Peikoff's opinion. Leonard Peikoff is generally viewed by OL members as slavish in his devotion to Rand. Suppose Barbara Weiss had been interviewed in 1974 or 1975. Suppose she'd spoken in even more flattering terms than Leonard Peikoff does. Would she have been trustworthy then?

Someone speaking very flatteringly of Rand isn't enough to make me suspect that they might be untrustworthy. Their asking people to believe them rather than their own eyes, or to condemn others without having listened to their side of the story, etc., makes me question their trustworthiness.

What if she'd said blistering things about Barbara Branden? I'm not able to vouch for this from directly hearing Barbara Weiss' mid-70s negativity toward Barbara Branden. However, from what I was told by some people who knew Weiss, her remarks about BB might have made her eventual assessment of Rand seem gentle.

I think it's possible that Barbara, as well as Nathaniel, might have been deserving of very harsh criticism in regard to specific things that Weiss or others may have witnessed.

The comments had a snarlish spiteful quality that I never heard from any of the others who'd remained loyal. There was also the way Weiss acted toward Rand. I found this icky to see, and, again, different from what I saw with any of the others. Oh, sure, they deferred to Rand, but they didn't act in the self-debasing way I thought Barbara Weiss acted.

During the past decade I've seen lots of people online whom I would describe as acting rather "icky" about Rand and Objectivism -- gushing about her being the greatest person who ever lived, being way too sensitive, defensive and humorless when discussing her ideas, being disproportionately judgmental and angry in attacking "enemies of Objectivism," etc. I've also seen many who have felt that they lost a part of themselves to Rand, and who were angry that they had trusted her and allowed themselves to be both dazzled and intimidated by her -- that they bought into her beliefs and then went out and made fools of themselves defending her and some of her half-baked opinions. I've seen resentment in them, and I've seen them make what appeared to be exaggerated criticisms of her motivated by the desire to pay her back. But I don't think the fact that these people were over the top means that they were "untrustworthy" and that there is no merit to anything they've said. I think the general substance of most of their criticism of Rand is probably pretty valid despite being a little overheated in style. I suspect the same is probably true of Weiss and her testimony.

I wouldn't use such a description as "killer of people" for the contempt Jonathan is talking about, and that isn't what I take Barbara Weiss' description to mean. The context from which the quote is cited speaks of Ayn as "just robb[ing] [Frank] of everything" and of Leonard Peikoff being "destroyed" and being "a robot at the end." As much as some of the people here dislike Leonard Peikoff, do you think that description is fair?

I don't know if it's fair or not. Not knowing Peikoff personally, I can't say for sure one way or the other. I do know that I've seen a lot of idiotic statements from him which make him look like a robotic acolyte. I've heard quite a few ridiculous things that he's said which seemed to have had the purpose of blurring reality to protect Rand or her creations. I sometimes get the impression that there's not a strongly independent identity at his core, and that can come across as Rand's having "killed" it.

Beyond Peikoff, I think that there are a lot of other people who have been somewhat "killed" by Rand. Just look online at the people who are very concerned about acquiring the proper "sense of life," who are willing to replace their tastes with Rand's (or what they assume would have been hers), and cleansing themselves of the moral and spiritual deficiency of settling for anything less than that which is "objectively superior" and representative of the "total passion for the total height." There are lots of little robotic Ayn Rand Wannabees running around who act like they've not only had a part of themselves "killed," but who are emulating Rand's snarlish, spiteful methods, and dreaming of killing the individuality in everyone else.

Weiss is also said by Heller, though this isn't given as a direct quote, to have "decided that Rand was not, after all, unconscious of the turbulence and pain she had caused in the lives of people who had cared for her, including Frank."

The details adduced in support of the "killer of people" phrase make it sound to me like an accusation of maliciousness. The tone coloration I get is something I *would* find appropriate applied to Lonnie Leonard, but not to Ayn Rand.

I think that Rand was indeed capable of maliciousness. I don't think that it was the essence of who she was, but I think it was a part of her. However, I could easily be convinced to change my opinion. If there's any evidence -- perhaps in some of her journal entries which were not included in PARC? -- which shows that she had seriously contemplated the effects of her actions on others, and regretted how her choices may have harmed them, I'd be interesting in reading it and weighing it against Weiss' statements.

J

Edited January 30, 2010 by Jonathan

[Brant Gaede]

I doubt there are many people who couldn't benefit from taking more responsibility for who they are and what they do thus eschewing victimhood, especially if from first-world countries and even more especially if American.

--Brant

Edited January 30, 2010 by Brant Gaede

[Neil Parille]

Peikoff seems to have lost the capacity for independent or critical thought.

He not only defended - but offered - Rand's claim that the streeker at the Academy Awards was a Kantian nihilst as the apex of social criticsm. His main contribution to Objectivism, OPAR, is little more than a repackaging of Rand's ideas with ritualistic denunciations of people and ideas that Rand would have denounced.

-Neil Parille

[Chris Grieb]

Peikoff seems to have lost the capacity for independent or critical thought.

He not only defended - but offered - Rand's claim that the streeker at the Academy Awards was a Kantian nihilst as the apex of social criticsm. His main contribution to Objectivism, OPAR, is little more than a repackaging of Rand's ideas with ritualistic denunciations of people and ideas that Rand would have denounced.

-Neil Parille

Neil; Excellent post! I agree with you about OPAR and I must add that I don't find much that Peikoff improved in the "Parllels" book from his lectures in '68. I am not planning to buy DIM which is still an awful title.

[Ellen Stuttle]

Factoid interjection:

I found evidence of Barbara Weiss' still being associated with Ayn Rand as late as September 1978.

It's a mimeographed, two-sided announcement sheet headed:

The Objectivist Calendar

P.O. Box 95 - Murray Hill Station - New York, N.Y. 10016

Editor and Publisher: Barbara Weiss

It's listed as "Number 15 - September 1978".

I also have "Number 14 - June 1978".

If I saved any other issues, they've gone AWOL. I don't know if the September 1978 issue was the last one.

==

The Ayn Rand Letter started publication October 11, 1971.

The staff was listed as:

Contributing Editor: Leonard Peikoff; Subscription Director: Elayne Kalberman; Production Manager: Barbara Weiss.

The address was:

201 East 34th Street, New York, N.Y. 10016.

This is the same address to which The Objectivist office was relocated from the Empire State Building after the AR/Brandens split.

Starting with Vol. II, No. 1, October 9, 1972, the address was changed to:

183 Madison Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10016.

(The staff listing was the same throughout.)

I don't know if that address would have been an office -- maybe a smaller office -- or an apartment (probably not), or just the address of a photocopying shop which was used for the mailing address.

Ellen

[Brant Gaede]

the 201 office was just in the block dwn the st from 120 E 34th on the other side. It was a nondescript 5 story or so old bldg serviced by an elevator. I think The Objectivist and the book service was on the 2nd or third floor and had the whole floor. An architect had the floor directly above or below but not on the grd floor. I thought that was neat and wondered what the architect thought about his fellow tenant. I visited it once or twice. I never went to the Madison Ave address. Don Grimme worked there for a short time until he admitted he had gotten mailings from NB or Academic Associates and was fired. He had also taken acting classes with me from Phillip J Smith. Don was more of a free spirit than the typical student of Objectivism or whatever it was he was.

--Brant

[Robert Campbell]

There aren't a whole lot of SOLOPsists left, but one of them is still congratulating himself.

thank you for making this such a terrific exchange of serious ideas and information, especially those who seem to have "signed in" specifically for this discussion!

http://www.solopassion.com/node/7295#comment-84045

I doubt he's meaning to thank Fred Seddon, who's been on and off SOLOP for years.

How many of those he does have in mind were specifically recruited for the occasion?

Robert Campbell

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Robert,

I count three or four.

Valliant seems to be hell-bent on proving that Nietzsche had no real influence on Rand's thinking by boring the living daylights out of the forum reader.

I have tried to follow this, since I am becoming very interested in the large patterns I have started to detect between Nietzsche and Rand, but the constant nitpicking of the beside-the-point gets to me. Regardless of what this dude writes on this topic, it always points to the message that Rand saw through the flawed and/or evil Nietzsche in her youth even when she first read him. And that the Nietzschean passages she deleted in We The Living really weren't her Nietzschean thinking at the time at all.

Hell, let's go for it. Rand probably dismissed Nietzsche and refuted him for all eternity even before she read him, maybe back when she was 4 years old.

Michael

[Chris Grieb]

Robert,

I count three or four.

Valliant seems to be hell-bent on proving that Nietzsche had no real influence on Rand's thinking by boring the living daylights out of the forum reader.

I have tried to follow this, since I am becoming very interested in the large patterns I have started to detect between Nietzsche and Rand, but the constant nitpicking of the beside-the-point gets to me. Regardless of what this dude writes on this topic, it always points to the message that Rand saw through the flawed and/or evil Nietzsche in her youth even when she first read him. And that the Nietzschean passages she deleted in We The Living really weren't her Nietzschean thinking at the time at all.

Hell, let's go for it. Rand probably dismissed Nietzsche and refuted him for all eternity even before she read him, maybe back when she was 4 years old.

Michael

Michael; I am reminded of David Boaz quoting Bette Davis at the Heller-Burns Cato Book Forum about Miss Rand being a libertarian. "But, Blanche that's what you are." On Ayn Rand's Nietzschean influence perhaps the last word in the quote should be "were".

[anonrobt]

Robert,

I count three or four.

Valliant seems to be hell-bent on proving that Nietzsche had no real influence on Rand's thinking by boring the living daylights out of the forum reader.

I have tried to follow this, since I am becoming very interested in the large patterns I have started to detect between Nietzsche and Rand, but the constant nitpicking of the beside-the-point gets to me. Regardless of what this dude writes on this topic, it always points to the message that Rand saw through the flawed and/or evil Nietzsche in her youth even when she first read him. And that the Nietzschean passages she deleted in We The Living really weren't her Nietzschean thinking at the time at all.

Hell, let's go for it. Rand probably dismissed Nietzsche and refuted him for all eternity even before she read him, maybe back when she was 4 years old.

Michael

Michael; I am reminded of David Boaz quoting Bette Davis at the Heller-Burns Cato Book Forum about Miss Rand being a libertarian. "But, Blanche that's what you are." On Ayn Rand's Nietzschean influence perhaps the last word in the quote should be "were".

I think, from the reading, that the extrapolations on this made in the Burns book even more forcefully made the connections of the influences - as well as why the shifting away from them in her developmental thinking and how she went about this shifting [which was to me the more interesting aspect of that book - the means she went thru to achieving those philosophical ends of hers [as opposed to the mythical 'full bloom from the forehead of Monerva' ]... it certainly does not detract from the brilliance of her conclusions - indeed actually shows it more, in that how one arrives at conclusions is an immense aid to understanding thinking processes than treating it as an 'oracle' matter...

[Robert Campbell]

Valliant seems to be hell-bent on proving that Nietzsche had no real influence on Rand's thinking by boring the living daylights out of the forum reader.

I have tried to follow this, since I am becoming very interested in the large patterns I have started to detect between Nietzsche and Rand, but the constant nitpicking of the beside-the-point gets to me. Regardless of what this dude writes on this topic, it always points to the message that Rand saw through the flawed and/or evil Nietzsche in her youth even when she first read him. And that the Nietzschean passages she deleted in We The Living really weren't her Nietzschean thinking at the time at all.

Michael,

It's a total snooze-inducer.

And Valliant is only able to sustain it because Jennifer Burns did not participate beyond her formal reply, and anyone besides Fred Seddon who might give him any trouble has already been run off.

As it turns out, the much delayed Spring 2009 issue of the Journal of Ayn Rand Studies will be out soon.

And the whoie issue will be about Nietzsche and Rand.

It will feature people who know their stuff, including Stephen Hicks, Lester Hunt, and Peter Saint-Andre, along with our very own Roger Bissell.

Do you think any of them are going to visit SOLOP to debate Jim Valliant?

Robert Campbell

PS. Lindsay's Perigo's latest rant about musical aesthetics will probably clear out half of those remaining:

http://www.solopassion.com/node/7295#comment-84060

[Brant Gaede]

I think Burns is much too smart to have stuck around that place.

The funniest thing about SOLOP is Perigo as a musical aesthetician and leveraging off that as a philosophical authority. Unfortunately he had a margin call to which he is oblivious, but the margin clerks sold him out anyway, as they always do.

--Brant

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I find the image of air conducting to someone else's pre-recorded orchestra and showing this off to some groupies (as Perigo has been seen doing during his so-called "value swoons") to be a really apt metaphor.

You pretend like you're conducting, but you're not really leading anyone.

You're following.

And who are you following?

In reality?

In reality, there's no one there anymore...

There never is for air conductors.

But you can still get a few groupies to ooh and aah.

... ooh...

...aah...

... the glimmer...

... of a word...

... in the distance...

... what?...

... what?...

Se...

Secon...

Secondha...

Secondhander!

Ta-daa!

Michael

[Robert Campbell]

I think Burns is much too smart to have stuck around that place.

She is.

Robert Campbell