We knew this would return to bite us

[Robert Campbell]

Let me ask you guys something: if you had a 23 year old neighbor who thought Bundy was real cute and should be lauded for never apologizing for his killings. What would your opinion be? Are you judging AR differently? Does, in your mind, the fact that she wrote some fabulous books exempt her? I'm curious.

Ginny,

My take on this is that the neighbor who expresses admiration for Ted Bundy is, at best, showing horrible judgment. I would express the hope that she gets over her Bundy thing, pronto.

I would give Ayn Credit for dropping The Little Street as a project, and dropping her enthusiasm for William Hickman, as best we can judge from the surviving journal entries. (Unfortunately, these have not only been Harrimanized for publication, but according to Jennifer Burns, the originals are now lost.) I have to think that when Rand admonished herself to be a "writing machine," she was still acutely conscious of The Little Street as one of her attempts that was just not good enough.

I would have liked to see Rand repudiate The Little Street and the mentality that led her to ever consider it worthwhile, but as we know from other episodes in her life, she was too reluctant to admit past errors and misjudgments. We are at least able to see the underlying mentality fade over time, with the Danny Renahan type being replaced by less vicious characters like Johnny Dawes and Bjorn Faulkner, then disappearing completely. (I don't really put Ragnar Danneskjöld in the same category.)

Robert Campbell

PS. I know of only one professed admirer of Ayn Rand who deliberately took Danny Renahan as a model. I'm not sure anyone really needs a whole lot more information about Lindsay Perigo...

[Robert Campbell]

Steve, I, too, when I first read Rand's Journals, knew that the issue of Hickman would one day be discovered and provide precisely the ammunition Rand-haters wanted.

Barbara,

Did you see the Hickman entries for the first time in David Harriman's book? The capitalizing suggests that you might be referring to the book, but your statement supports a different reading, as does your capitalizing in the next quote—so I'm not completely sure...

(I think that the material in her Journals about her functioning as Nathaniel's therapist, presented by Valliant in his book, will eventually be discovered by psychologists and will also result in a storm of outrage.)

Eventually.

So far, the reaction to her serving as a therapist (in an obvious conflict-of-interest situation) has been muted.

Rob Bradley has discussed it in his book Capitalism at Work. But there hasn't been much more.

Judging from a remark she made in a recent email exchange, Anne Heller thinks that it was foolish of Ayn Rand to be counseling Nathaniel Branden, but that such excesses were typical of the times—and that it was incumbent on Nathaniel to object to the arrangement, instead of going along with it in order to put off the inevitable.

It's because no one outside of Rand-land reads Jim Valliant's book that her attempts to function as a therapist still haven't come to the attention of professional psychologists. Once a clinician or counselor who already dislikes Rand gets wind of the story, it will be a very long time before anyone else hears the end of it.

Some people who really really hate Rand liken her to L. Ron Hubbard, so it will be grist for their mills too.

Robert Campbell

[Ellen Stuttle]

I would have liked to see Rand repudiate The Little Street and the mentality that led her to ever consider it worthwhile, [...].

I think that whatever she saw in the image of Hickman in the dock was the basis for her image of Roark in the dock at the Cortland trial, and that what she took from her attempt at Danny Renahan was transformed into Roark. Thus that those who love The Fountainhead should be grateful for the episode's end result.

Ellen

[Ellen Stuttle]

It's because no one outside of Rand-land reads Jim Valliant's book that her attempts to function as a therapist still haven't come to the attention of professional psychologists. Once a clinician or counselor who already dislikes Rand gets wind of the story, it will be a very long time before anyone else hears the end of it.

That may be, but if professional psychologists do make a case over it, I think the case will be silly. Rand was not a professional therapist and bound by the (sometimes silly anyway) ethics of the profession.

Ellen

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I, for one, think it denigrates Rand's image to insinuate that she was incapable of creating Howard Roark without first becoming infatuated with a murdering monster.

I am grateful that Rand created Howard Roark. I am not grateful she became infatuated with a murdering monster.

That's what I think. And that's what I think I should think.

As to if and when professional psychologists tear into Rand for practicing their profession, we should all make sure to convey to them that Stuttle thinks they are silly. That should stop them.

Michael

[Barbara Branden]

Robert Campbell:

"Barbara, Did you see the Hickman entries for the first time in David Harriman's book? "

Yes, I'd never heard of Hickman until I read the Harriman entries. And Ayn had never mentioned him.

I don't expect I'll ever understand why Peikoff, in the process of removing from Ayn's statements what he preferred she had not said, left in her reaction to Hickman and her "therapeutic treatment" of Nathaniel.

Barbara

[Robert Campbell]

Ms. Stuttle appears to be in complete agreement with Holly Valliant about something.

Sure, some of the claims that psychologists presently make about professional ethics are questionable. (My colleague Mark Bickhard has written about the emptiness of "dual role" theory, which many ethicists in the profession claim provides grounding for their prescriptions.) Some other rules are about protecting the guild.

In Ayn Rand's case, however:

— She wasn't a competent counselor

— She was counseling her (ex-)lover

— She was counseling her disciple

— She was counseling her business partner

Common sense will tell you that doing any one of these is asking for trouble. All four of them together...?

In pointing to the excesses of the era, Anne Heller mentioned Baba Ram Dass and Carlos Castañeda.

Just how would Rand have responded, had anyone dared to compare her with either of those worthies?

Robert Campbell

[Robert Campbell]

I don't expect I'll ever understand why Peikoff, in the process of removing from Ayn's statements what he preferred she had not said, left in her reaction to Hickman and her "therapeutic treatment" of Nathaniel.

Barbara,

There's one easy way to understand these kinds of decisions:

Ambivalence.

Big-time.

Robert Campbell

[Robert Campbell]

I think that whatever she saw in the image of Hickman in the dock was the basis for her image of Roark in the dock at the Cortland trial, and that what she took from her attempt at Danny Renahan was transformed into Roark. Thus that those who love The Fountainhead should be grateful for the episode's end result.

Is this meant as praise for The Fountainhead, or condemnation?

Robert Campbell

[Neil Parille]

I too was surprised that the statements about Hickmann and Rand's belief that we are living in the midst of subhumans were left in.

-Neil Parille

[Selene]

Judging from a remark she made in a recent email exchange, Anne Heller thinks that it was foolish of Ayn Rand to be counseling Nathaniel Branden, but that such excesses were typical of the times—and that it was incumbent on Nathaniel to object to the arrangement, instead of going along with it in order to put off the inevitable.

Robert Campbell

Robert:

Certainly, all power relationships being equal, it was incumbent upon Nathaniel.

However, I can imagine that with his internal world and external world crashing together, he would have been too weak emotionally to speak up.

Guilt sucks.

Adam

[9thdoctor]

why Peikoff, in the process of removing from Ayn's statements what he preferred she had not said, left in her reaction to Hickman

It may be a rare example of integrity on his part. Or (more likely) he may share my view that this isn’t a big deal, that it sheds light on the genesis of later characters, and that’s the extent of it’s significance. The published material contains ample qualifications (Renahan would be what Hickman suggested to her). It's open to a more innocuous interpretation than most of what been offered on this thread.

Can anyone think of a book that is similar to what The Little Street would have been? A Clockwork Orange isn’t right, though it’s what comes to mind. Besides Oliver Twist, I haven’t dipped into the other Newgate novels, which were defined by their supposed glorification of criminals. Maybe Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment, but without Raskolnikov's eventual attack of conscience. Or better, a Jean Valjean who does something worse than stealing a loaf of bread. For example he assasinates an Ellsworth Toohey.

We're speculating about a book that doesn't exist.

Edited March 8, 2010 by Ninth Doctor

[Ellen Stuttle]

I think that whatever she saw in the image of Hickman in the dock was the basis for her image of Roark in the dock at the Cortland trial, and that what she took from her attempt at Danny Renahan was transformed into Roark. Thus that those who love The Fountainhead should be grateful for the episode's end result.

Is this meant as praise for The Fountainhead, or condemnation?

Robert Campbell

Neither.

Ellen

[Jonathan]

It may be a rare example of integrity on his part. Or (more likely) he may share my view that this isn’t a big deal, that it sheds light on the genesis of later characters, and that’s the extent of it’s significance.

I'd guess that those who decided to publish Rand's notes on Hickman generally don't think independently enough about Rand to recognize that her opinions on people's motives for condemning Hickman were ridiculous. I suspect that to Peikoff and Co., since Rand said it, then it must have been true. I think it probably would not occur to them how insane it sounds for Rand to claim that ordinary people had committed worse sins and crimes than Hickman's, just as it probably wouldn't occur to Pigero how insane he sounds in claiming that people who were appalled at Tony Veitch's vicious assault on his domestic partner were more "vile and inexcusable" than Veitch.

The published material contains ample qualifications (Renahan would be what Hickman suggested to her). It's open to a more innocuous interpretation than most of what been offered on this thread.

I keep thinking of the context. Rand had just escaped a country which took advantage of people's natural feelings of concern for their fellow man, and used those sentiments to enslave them. I think it's only natural that a sensitive soul who wanted to be a writer would be drawn to pondering what psychological characteristics might be needed to counter such evil. It makes sense to me that when she saw someone who appeared to be immune to being emotionally manipulated, she would naturally take an interest in him.

Can anyone think of a book that is similar to what The Little Street would have been? A Clockwork Orange isn’t right, though it’s what comes to mind. Besides Oliver Twist, I haven’t dipped into the other Newgate novels, which were defined by their supposed glorification of criminals. Maybe Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment, but without Raskolnikov's eventual attack of conscience. Or better, a Jean Valjean who does something worse than stealing a loaf of bread. For example he assasinates an Ellsworth Toohey.

I can't think of a book that's similar to what The Little Street would have been, but I keep thinking of the myth of Keyser Soze (whose image happens to be my avatar here) as representing something close to what Rand was describing, or at least aspects of what she was describing -- a heroic criminal of supreme confidence who has no concern for others, etc.

Here's some dialog from The Usual Suspects:

There was a gang of Hungarians that wanted their own mob. They realized that to be in power, you didn’t need guns or money or even numbers. You just needed the will to do what the other guy wouldn’t. After a while, they come into power and then they come after Soze. He was small-time then, just running dope, they say. They come to his home in the afternoon, looking for his business. They find his wife and kids in the house and decide to wait for Soze.

He comes home to find his wife raped and children screaming. The Hungarians knew Soze was tough, not to be trifled with, so they let him know they meant business. [They slit his boy's throat.]

They tell him they want his territory, all his business. Soze looks over the faces of his family. Then he showed these men of will what will really was. [soze shoots two of the three men, then turns to his own family and shoots them as well.]

He tells [the third man] he would rather see his family dead than live another day after this. He lets the last Hungarian go, waits until his wife and kids are in the ground, and then he goes after the rest of the mob. He kills their kids. He kills their wives. He kills their parents and their parents’ friends. He burns down the houses they live in, the stores they work in. He kills people that owe them money.

J

Edited March 8, 2010 by Jonathan

[Brant Gaede]

Judging from a remark she made in a recent email exchange, Anne Heller thinks that it was foolish of Ayn Rand to be counseling Nathaniel Branden, but that such excesses were typical of the times—and that it was incumbent on Nathaniel to object to the arrangement, instead of going along with it in order to put off the inevitable.

Robert Campbell

Robert:

Certainly, all power relationships being equal, it was incumbent upon Nathaniel.

However, I can imagine that with his internal world and external world crashing together, he would have been too weak emotionally to speak up.

Guilt sucks.

Adam

Sorry, but Nathaniel wasn't a competent psychotherapist until the 1970s. I mean , he was his own wife's psychotherapist--WTF!!!

He hit his stride when no longer under Rand's and Objectivism's thumb and could think more objectively and clearly.

--Brant

[Selene]

Judging from a remark she made in a recent email exchange, Anne Heller thinks that it was foolish of Ayn Rand to be counseling Nathaniel Branden, but that such excesses were typical of the times—and that it was incumbent on Nathaniel to object to the arrangement, instead of going along with it in order to put off the inevitable.

Robert Campbell

Robert:

Certainly, all power relationships being equal, it was incumbent upon Nathaniel.

However, I can imagine that with his internal world and external world crashing together, he would have been too weak emotionally to speak up.

Guilt sucks.

Adam

Sorry, but Nathaniel wasn't a competent psychotherapist until the 1970s. I mean , he was his own wife's psychotherapist--WTF!!!

He hit his stride when no longer under Rand's and Objectivism's thumb and could think more objectively and clearly.

--Brant

Brant:

I completely agree, I guess I was not clear.

Adam

[Robert Campbell]

Neither.

After a while, mysterianism becomes predictable—and boring.

Robert Campbell

[Ellen Stuttle]

What's mysterious about it, Robert?

The statement was meant neither as praise for The Fountainhead nor as condemnation. It was a statement pertaining to aesthetic process, not to the ethical merits of the result. Did you really not understand that?

Ellen

[Brant Gaede]

What's mysterious about it, Robert?

The statement was meant neither as praise for The Fountainhead nor as condemnation. It was a statement pertaining to aesthetic process, not to the ethical merits of the result. Did you really not understand that?

Ellen

Hickman to Roark is just an easy and cheap extrapolation. Before we're done we're going to burn all of Ayn Rand's books and get our Randian memories erased.

--Brant

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Robert,

I have a term I used in the past for mysterianism when I was doing popular songwriting. I used to call it superficial profundity.

You strike a pose, utter some profound-sounding whatever, and look for a reaction out of the corner of your eye. But there's not too much behind it. This is a malady that affects many pop artists.

Nowadays, whenever I come across it, my inner brat always conjures up an image of a motorcycle gang member, black leather jacket--with a chain on it--open to the waist, medieval tattoo on the side of his neck, long dirty unkempt hair, scraggly beard, smelling like a brewery and slightly weaving. He looks at the person, blinks a few times, scratches the back of his ear and spits. Then he looks off into the distance and stays still for a bit.

Nodding, he says, "Heavy, dude."

Michael

[jeffrey smith]

He hit his stride when no longer under Rand's and Objectivism's thumb and could think more objectively and clearly.

--Brant

Brant, you excelled yourself there.

(italics mine)

Jeffrey S.

[Barbara Branden]

I don't expect I'll ever understand why Peikoff, in the process of removing from Ayn's statements what he preferred she had not said, left in her reaction to Hickman and her "therapeutic treatment" of Nathaniel.

Barbara,

There's one easy way to understand these kinds of decisions:

Ambivalence.

Big-time.

Robert Campbell

Oops! Of course.

Barbara

[Greybird]

[... I am not] prone to make an accusation of rape or pedophilia lightly.

Unless it's part of ... a movie review?

{grins, ducks, runs}

[Greybird]

Apart from one comment on the source material (and the catcall above {g}), I've sat back to let this thread unfold. I'm glad that it's resulted in such productive discussion and conceptual tweaking.

My own quandary — unadmitted when starting this thread — is still unresolved, I have to say. It remains a smear, especially as against Rand's later achievements, to bring up Hickman as if the episode defined or shaped her character in a significant way.

Yet I still can't decide whether either dissecting and denouncing the smear, or explaining how it did not affect the core of her works, is the better strategic choice. Either alternative is open to charges of rationalization or favoritism.

I suppose I'm simply tired of springing to anyone's defense, including Rand's, even when I see such incoming fire. It's hard enough to even defend myself in various forums.

[Selene]

Greybird:

Well put.

Excellent thread actually, especially since I did not experience the post split diaspora of Objectivism first hand, it was helpful for me to understand how crazed it had become.

Tactically, responding to that type of attack only tends to empower it.

Stick to the positives.

I get all the "stuff" out in my original conversations with folks. Moreover, I personalize it by explaining how she helped shape my values and my path in life by confirming my assumptions and providing me with an organized approach to what I knew was rational.

To what better principle could you dedicate your life to?

Adam