We knew this would return to bite us

[ginny]

George, I truly hate arguing, so I'll take that step back again. I agree with what you say, but we're looking at the situation totally differently. Let's agree to disagree. BTW, when it comes to committing horrific crimes, unless there are extenuating circumstances, I'll happily conform to basic societal norms and not harm others.

Oh, I don't mean to keep digging at you, but just one thing. What institutions exactly made it so hard for Hickman to function that he had to become angry and bitter enough to ... well, we've covered that.

[jeffrey smith]

As opposed to what? I think there’s an unnamed implication here, that by “worse sins and crimes” she really meant the kind of activities portrayed in a French bedroom farce. Or petty shoplifting. Small everyday peccadillos. I have a hard time believing that, but there isn’t enough material to work with to come to a definitive conclusion. Plus, who knows what the Journals really say, pre-Heirbrushing®?

I think that by "worse sins and crimes" Rand meant something along the lines of what JR wrote: "Their smug self-satisfaction, the open pride they take in their ignorance and stupidity, is enough to sicken anyone of any intelligence."

Apparently the idea is that it's understandable that Rand rated the smug self-satisfaction of the ignorant masses as a worse crime than the mutilation of a little girl, but it's disgusting (and perhaps proof of smug, self-satisfied ignorance) for people to take Rand a little too literally and to be disturbed by her sense of proportion -- her queasiness over ignorant smugness and her comparative tolerance for mutilation.

J

Self satisfaction and being proud of being ignorant and stupid--are they not denial of the human mind? Is that not an act of voluntary self mutilation? Why wouldn't Rand be enraged at what is, in an Objectivist framework, the "sin against the Holy Spirit", the act that can not be forgiven because it so fundamentally destroys the self?

Jeffrey S.

[George H. Smith]

Psst -- Jonathan, don't tell anyone this, but I have never been a big fan of Rand's novels. I love the abstract speeches, but her characters rarely speak to me on a personal level. I like the darker, grittier stuff better.

I don't want this to get around because I've already caused enough trouble on OL.

;)

Ghs

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I don't want this to get around because I've already caused enough trouble on OL.

George,

Dayaamm!

I thought you were just warming up...

Michael

[George H. Smith]

George, I truly hate arguing, so I'll take that step back again. I agree with what you say, but we're looking at the situation totally differently. Let's agree to disagree. BTW, when it comes to committing horrific crimes, unless there are extenuating circumstances, I'll happily conform to basic societal norms and not harm others.

Oh, I don't mean to keep digging at you, but just one thing. What institutions exactly made it so hard for Hickman to function that he had to become angry and bitter enough to ... well, we've covered that.

Churches are one institution Rand focuses on -- she has some fascinating comments about the moral obscenity of giving Bibles to convicted murderers in the effort to convert them -- and families are another. There may be others, but I don't recall offhand.

As for your other remarks, I think you should read Rand's comments first-hand in their entirety. Her notes take up 25 pages, and there is a lot in them. Things may jump out for you that didn't for me.

One thing you should know about me is that I gave up years ago worrying about whether or not I agree with what a writer of Rand's caliber has to say. What I am looking for are original and provocative points of view, things that will get me to think and possibly reconsider or improve my own ideas. Rand's notes scored an A+ in that regard, and the gal was only 23 when she wrote them. Very impressive, and I'm not easily impressed.

Ghs

[9thdoctor]

And let us not forget how Gore Vidal demanded that his name be removed from the screenplay credit for the move "Caligula" -- the greatest, most expensive, and garish over-the-top porn extravaganza ever made.

If you haven’t seen this, it’s a hoot.

<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLK4mA9GgMo&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param'>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLK4mA9GgMo&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLK4mA9GgMo&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>

I like the darker, grittier stuff better.

Well do name some names! There's a thread for it already:

http://www.objectivistliving.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=7596&st=380

[George H. Smith]

Well do name some names! There's a thread for it already:

http://www.objectivistliving.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=7596&st=380

I'm not much of a novel reader, actually. I tend to agree with Brand Blanshard, who once said that if wants to read a book purely for pleasure, he would rather read a biography than a novel, since the characters and events in a good biography are probably more complex and bizarre than anything you are likely to find in a novel. 8-)

Ghs

[George H. Smith]

About Rand's novels...

I reread The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged around two years ago. I have always liked The Fountainhead better, and that didn't change. What changed was that I enjoyed both novels more than I had in the past.

This was because I had previously read Rand's Art of Fiction and her Journals, and both of these discuss various technical aspects of those novels. Thus, while rereading them, I didn't really get into the novels per se; rather, I was more aware of the techniques that Rand used in writing them, and that enhanced my enjoyment of reading them.

My mind has always worked like that. While watching a movie that I really like, I am often thinking about features of the screenplay that I like. In my early years, while I was heavily into music, I would go to see a movie with a score, say, by Henry Mancini, focus on the music, and barely remember the movie itself, even if I really liked it. Go figure....

Ghs

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

George,

I see Rand's view on Hickman involving an epistemological issue I have not fully resolved for myself. I call it the cognitive-normative inversion.

The proper sequence for judging anything, in my understanding, is to identify it correctly, then judge it. Of course, I mean after the volitional conceptual faculty has matured. A baby doesn't do that. The baby judges first, then tries to identify.

For adults, my logic goes, how can you correctly judge something if you have identified it incorrectly? You can't.

Rand did the opposite of adults at times (at many times, in fact). She used the epistemological methodology of an infant. She formulated her normative abstraction firmly before the cognitive part. She judged something--in all or nothing terms--then sought out bits of identification here and there to make reality equal to what she judged.

Rand certainly did this with Hickman and common people. Although she acknowledged the monstrosity of Hickman's acts, she did not allow that to have any input into her harsh condemnation of common people. Why? I believe it was because she had already judged common people as irredeemably corrupt and needed some facts as corroboration. A brutal murderer was a dramatic way to do that. The facts that didn't fit could be easily discarded.

Reality is not so accommodating, but who cares when you have an all-or-nothing judgment at stake?

To her, the fact that common people found the lack of Hickman's remorse despicable could only have been rooted in the despicableness of the common people, not in the despicableness of Hickman's acts. I literally don't think it occurred to her that people believed (as I believe) that not having a moral compass with an arrow pointed directly toward simple human decency was evil--and their words were attempts to say that, irrespective of how Rand interpreted them. Depraved indifference is not a virtue, yet Rand tried to elevate it to one in her notes (and, yes, I have read the entire passage).

As I stated earlier, she could have easily chosen any number of other examples to illustrate the point she was making. She didn't need a total loon. I would need to look at the history books of the times, but life is full of dramatic stuff and no doubt it was full of dramatic stuff back then. Yet Rand settled on a monster. I believe it is a mistake to brush aside this fact as insignificant. I believe you get an incorrect version of Rand--and of cognitive-normative epistemology--by doing that. And of psychology...

There is another element that is more troubling to me. Rand's cognitive-normative inversion was also illustrated by her 100% adoption of love at first sight in all-or-nothing terms. In her own words, she literally fell in love with Frank O'Connor because he had her kind of face. That was it. The long and short of it. A face in a crowd. There was nothing else.

I believe Hickman also had her kind of face and this influenced her even more than her stretched opinion of the true nature of common people.

I think most of us understand love at first sight as falling hard for someone, but then keeping an eye open as events unfold to corroborate that initial impression. But there is an unspoken hope that the fist impression is right and a mighty attempt to make it so. But not total certainty that it was right.

Rand needed no such corroboration and had no such hope. She was 100% certain on inconclusive observations. How did she know? Well... she just knew. That's all.

If the facts did not fit, she blanked them out. (Yes, I know that is the equivalent of an Objectivist cuss word. I just don't know any other term to say it with that conveys such clarity.) For example, Frank was not a true hero? No problem. She waved her mental magic wand and he was a hero on strike until the end of his life. (I know, I know. Atlas came later. But I hope you see what I am getting at.)

At the very least, Rand severed all normative components from the facts that didn't fit her vision from any normative part of that vision, or cognitive part if need be. Yet she claimed the whole thing was based on reality.

Once again, how did she know? She just knew. Nothing more.

Now here comes my problem. According to what I just wrote, it looks like an open-and-shut case for Rand getting it backwards.

Yet...

Many productive creators throughout history who started with an impossible vision and held true to it went on to make it become real.

That's a fact. I've done it myself.

How do you like them apples? You can judge something without knowing what it is and still get it right. Like I said, I've done it. Just not all the time. It doesn't work all the time...

So... do I think Rand was wrong for dreaming? No. Of course not.

Do I blame Rand for getting it wrong as she dreamed her dream? No. God knows I've done it.

Do I think she transformed some of her later dreams into magnificent creations? Absolutely. I've done that, too (on a lesser scale, of course).

But, do I think she was creepy as all get out in that particular Hickman dream? You bet. To me, she made that punk rocker who bit the head off of a live chicken on stage look tame. And let's not forget that Hitler had a vision, too.

But where is the balance point between starting with cognitive and starting with normative? Is one more correct than the other? I believe so, mostly, but when? I keep thinking, but I don't have an answer.

So is it all over the place, on a case-by-case basis, and chaos is an inherent part of reality?

Damned if I know right now.

I'm nowhere near finished thinking about all this.

Michael

[George H. Smith]

The problem isn't Rand's brainstorming, but that the enormity of the crime didn't bring her up short at the horridness of it all. Her brain was strangely wired, but she transcended it as best she could.

--Brant

And how good was that, in your estimation? To whom did Ayn Rand give any slack. With whom did she cut a break? In the biography I read recently, the one by Anne Heller, Ayn Rand seemed to come across as a Terrible Person.

I have a theory about this issue, which may mean absolutely nothing, since I have a theory about almost every issue. Nevertheless, my theory, in a nutshell, is this:

If Rand had not been a hard-nosed, tough, and even abrasive dame in some respects, we never would have heard of her, because, given the hostile political and cultural climate of her earlier years, she would never have survived all the crap she had to endure to get where she wanted to go. If Rand didn't already have these survival skills when she first came to America, she had to adapt fairly quickly in order not to have her spirit crushed under a weight that would have caused most people to give up.

Get to America...learn English..support yourself while you attempt to get a writing career off the ground...battle the collectivist tendencies that dominate intellectual circles where "capitalism" is a dirty word...establish yourself as a market philosopher with no insitutional affiliations or support...get yourself taken seriously in a culture where female intellectuals have to fight against sexual stereotypes...get novels published that contain long philosophical speeches...the list goes on.

Ghs

[anthony]

I respect George's attempt to bring some sense of proportion to the issue.

I have to ask this: Bottom line, what's changed?

Are we here to celebrate Ayn Rand's work, or her life?

Well...,agreed, both.

But if there is anyone else who's life would have been a little bit emptier without the enhancement and support that Rand's philosophy provided, how much significance must we give to those times that she imploded, when she did not live up to her own lofty standards?

I for one decided a long time (a year actually, but it feels like a long time) ago, not to "shoot the messenger".

It is 'we the living' that I am most concerned with; so I have to add that if the facts of this 'incident' were known to both the Brandens earlier(?), that they did not divulge them when they had the opportunity - and to some, the motive, - demonstrates beyond a doubt the respect, admiration, and benevolence - even love - that they feel for her still. All in all, in productiveness and integrity, they are the true symbols of Objectivism to me.

[George H. Smith]

Rand did the opposite of adults at times (at many times, in fact). She used the epistemological methodology of an infant. She formulated her normative abstraction firmly before the cognitive part. She judged something--in all or nothing terms--then sought out bits of identification here and there to make reality equal to what she judged.

I think you have overstated the case (I wouldn't compare Rand's methodology at all to that of an infant), although there is obviously some truth in what you say. More on this later....

Rand certainly did this with Hickman and common people. Although she acknowledged the monstrosity of Hickman's acts, she did not allow that to have any input into her harsh condemnation of common people. Why? I believe it was because she had already judged common people as irredeemably corrupt and needed some facts as corroboration. A brutal murderer was a dramatic way to do that. The facts that didn't fit could be easily discarded.

The facts of the Hickman case were not really relevant to Rand's purpose. And again, I don't think we should make too much of "notes to self" that the young Rand wrote in the course of working out characters for a novel that she never wrote.

To her, the fact that common people found the lack of Hickman's remorse despicable could only have been rooted in the despicableness of the common people, not in the despicableness of Hickman's acts. I literally don't think it occurred to her that people believed (as I believe) that not having a moral compass with an arrow pointed directly toward simple human decency was evil--and their words were attempts to say that, irrespective of how Rand interpreted them. Depraved indifference is not a virtue, yet Rand tried to elevate it to one in her notes (and, yes, I have read the entire passage).

I agree that Rand's notes contain some odd ideas, but many of these play little or no role in her later writings. Rand was a budding writer and intellectual who was attempting to work out some ideas for a novel. She was obviously under the spell of Nietzsche to a certain extent, which helps to explain her contemptuous attitude toward the "common people," but it is very much to her credit that she didn't stay stuck in that way of thinking but reasoned her way out of it instead.

As I stated earlier, she could have easily chosen any number of other examples to illustrate the point she was making. She didn't need a total loon. I would need to look at the history books of the times, but life is full of dramatic stuff and no doubt it was full of dramatic stuff back then. Yet Rand settled on a monster. I believe it is a mistake to brush aside this fact as insignificant. I believe you get an incorrect version of Rand--and of cognitive-normative epistemology--by doing that. And of psychology...

Here I seriously disagree with you. Rand did not use Hickman to "illustrate" anything. His widely publicized case probably gave her the idea for the character of Danny, and she stresses the unimportance of the accuracy of her views about Hickman. She merely used Hickman as a rather vague prototype for the construction of Danny, while ignoring those details about Hickman (such as the details of his crime) that were not relevant to that process. The fictional Danny was also a cold-blooded murderer, and I see no evidence in Rand's notes to indicate that she intended to portray Danny in heroic terms. As far as I can see, there were to be no true heroes in The Little Street.

I'll continue this discussion later. I just got up, and I sometimes live to regret posts I have written before that first cup of coffee. I therefore don't want to dig myself into a hole so deep that I can't crawl my way out of it later. 8-)

Oh, one last thing. When I first read this thread about Hickman, a character that immediately occurred to me was Gordon Northcott, that despicable, creepy, and cowardly sociopath and mass child killer in Clint Eastwood's move "The Changeling." That guy also had a nose-thumbing attitude towards society, and I suspect that the character of Northcott is closer to the real Hickman than was Rand's conception.

There is no doubt in my mind that Rand would have been repelled by Northcott; and had he been a real person (the character was based on a real person), she would have found nothing of interest in him.

This raises an interesting question: If Rand had interviewed Hickman herself instead of relying on secondary accounts, would she have gone away with the same impression that we find in her notes? I seriously doubt it. I think she would have encountered a version of Northcott and found him utterly deranged.

One thing I found interesting in Rand's notes was her reaction to newspaper reports that Hickman (like the character Northcott) sometimes had a cowardly, sniveling demeanor. Rand rejects those reports as an effort to reduce Hickman to conventional stereotypes -- something less threatening to the masses -- but I suspect those reports, which would have made Hickman very much like Northcott, were true.

Good post, Michael. Later....

Ghs

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Here I seriously disagree with you. Rand did not use Hickman to "illustrate" anything.

George,

I didn't mean illustrate in the sense you mean here. But that's my fault. I have no problem taking the rap for a poor choice of word.

I meant something more creative and less preachy. Maybe "use as initial model" is closer. I'll think about this and see what I can come up with.

The way I honestly feel about Rand-Hickman-common people is that when Rand screwed up, she did it right. Whole hog. There was nothing small about her in the creative realm.

Thank God she never became a politician able to order the deployment of firearms. I believe she would mostly be right and wise, but when she would screw up...

Hmmmmm....

Michael

[Rich Engle]

Ghs:

I agree that Rand's notes contain some odd ideas, but many of these play little or no role in her later writings. Rand was a budding writer and intellectual who was attempting to work out some ideas for a novel. She was obviously under the spell of Nietzsche to a certain extent, which helps to explain her contemptuous attitude toward the "common people," but it is very much to her credit that she didn't stay stuck in that way of thinking but reasoned her way out of it instead.

Agree. But what I am wondering (perhaps you have a take on this) is, if she really reasoned herself all the way out of it. I ask this because I recall reading in NB's "My Years With Ayn Rand" a section where he was talking about how, after Atlas came out, she was flooded with many letters of praise, letters from what I guess she considered more common folk who generally were thanking her for the book and saying that it invigorated them, changed them, etc., but this did not give her any solace because she was waiting for the prime movers to come, and they didn't. It was like she created characters she thought she would find in real form, and they either weren't there at all, or weren't interested.

Just curious.

Thanks,

rde

Edited March 29, 2010 by Rich Engle

[George H. Smith]

The way I honestly feel about Rand-Hickman-common people is that when Rand screwed up, she did it right. Whole hog. There was nothing small about her in the creative realm.

Good point. Rand was a classic "bigger-than-life" character, which is why people tend either to love her or hate her.

As I recall, Rand regarded herself as a novelist, first and foremost, and she developed the fundamentals of her philosophy as an aid to her fiction writing. Her highly developed -- and at times over the top -- sense of the dramatic comes out most clearly in her nonfiction writing when she uses archetypes, such as Attila and the Witch Doctor, as embodiments of ideas and attitudes, and when she fastens on a single philosopher, most notably Kant, to explain much of what is wrong with the world. This procedure led her to some highly dubious conclusions (to put it politely) about which I have bitched for many years.

Here is how I put it in "Thinking About War" (Liberty Magazine, March 2008) at:

http://libertyunbound.com/archive/2008_05/smith-war.html

"There is an unfortunate tendency among some Objectivists to map out a short and easy route through the history of ideas that will take them to a predetermined destination. The destination, more often than not, is "altruism" — an evil that lurks behind every bush and under every rock in the history of philosophy. More pernicious still, according to these Objectivists, are the seeds of altruism that, once planted, can lie dormant and undetected in the soil of seemingly benign theories, only to emerge decades or even centuries later as full-blown doctrines of self-sacrifice. In their early stages, these seeds can be so subtle and elusive as to be perceptible only to dedicated altruism hunters."

Ghs

[Barbara Branden]

[quote name='Jeff Riggenbach' date='28 March 2010 - 04:57 AM' timestamp='1269777470' post='94730']

I'm not a fiction writer, but I've brainstormed mini-essays -- experimental pieces, in effect, that I never intended to be read by others -- that "defend" the most horrible crimes in an effort to push the limits of what I think can be reasonably defended. The whole point of brainstorming is not to censor oneself, but to write in a stream of consciousness manner, see what comes out, and then pick out whatever one finds useful.

Some of you guys need to lighten up on Rand.

I have to go with George on all of the above. Not only do you push the limits in that way, you can drop context in these kinds of internal mental exercises - view someone as possessing 'strength' even though he is vicious. Even though in reality you would never let that outweigh the full context of a person.

I also basically agree with George, except when it comes to Rand's contempt for those who expressed rage for Hickman:

"No matter what the man did, there is always something loathsome in the 'virtuous' indignation and mass-hatred of the 'majority.'... It is repulsive to see all these beings with worse sins and crimes in their own lives, virtuously condemning a criminal...This is not just the case of a terrible crime. It is not the crime alone that has raised the fury of public hatred. It is the case of a daring challenge to society. It is the fact that a crime has been committed by one man..."

That's crazy-talk. Even in a deep, artistic, creative trance, the idea of claiming that good, ordinary people had committed worse crimes than kidnapping, murdering and hacking to bits a little girl is nutty and creepy. To me, it's the point where Rand stepped over the line.

Actually, of course, they don't have to have committed worse crimes than Hickman did. Their smug self-satisfaction, the open pride they take in their ignorance and stupidity, is enough to sicken anyone of any intelligence. It obviously sickened Rand.

JR

Who is this "they?" The total of the Americam public? The total of those who were horrified by Hickman's crime? Is everyone except one's own chosen elite --meaning oneself and those who agree with one -- ignorant, stupid, and proud of it? What philosophy were we discussing?

Barbara

[Brant Gaede]

In 1936 Spencer Tracy stared in Fury, a Fritz Lang film, about a man who narrowly escapes lynching and incineration and seeks revenge. The mob attacking the jail and it going up in flames with Tracy inside is still extremely strong and raw. (Lynch mobs were also depicted in other films including the 1950s Night of the Hunter. Lynching of blacks was a leitmotif of the pre-WWII South and continued, essentially, into the 1960s, if not with actual hanging other forms of murder.) John Hospers told Ayn Rand Fury was one of his favorite films and this helped bond them. People really were much more bigoted and ignorant and subsequently stupider back then.

--Brant

gives Ayn Rand a pass on this one

[Brant Gaede]

To flesh out my previous post: Did AR go down to the courthouse and picket for Hickman? Write letters to the editor in his support?

--Brant

[Barbara Branden]

To flesh out my previous post: Did AR go down to the courthouse and picket for Hickman? Write letters to the editor in his support?

--Brant

Brant, if I were to tell you I admire Fidel Castro's rejection of conventional morality, that despite all the terrible crimes he's committed, I still see in him a "free, clear spirit," an "egoism" which is the only thing that counts -- would you consider it relevant that II hadn't picketed in Castro's behalf?

Whynot, you wrote:"But if there is anyone else who's life would have been a little bit emptier without the enhancement and support that Rand's philosophy provided, how much significance must we give to those times that she imploded, when she did not live up to her own lofty standards?"

My life certainly was vastly enriched by what I learned from her, and I shall always be in her debt for that -- but that doesn't mean that I should not acknowledge that she was capable of making very serious mistakes. These are two separate issues, and should be kept separate. I'll tell you a secret: I, too, have made some disastrous mistakes in my life, and I don;t expect people to ignore them -- nor to ignore whatever good and valuable things i have done. I don't expect people to damn me to hell-fire and brimstone for my mistakes, nor to canonize me for my virtues. Fellas, facts are facts on both sides of the ledger;

So in this respect, I can echo George:: Lighten up, everybody. Don't turn to jello when you see something in Rand you know to be wrong.

Barbara

[Alfonso Jones]

So in this respect, I can echo George:: Lighten up, everybody. Don't turn to jello when you see something in Rand you know to be wrong.

Barbara

Well put, Barbara.

There is so much that was good in Ayn Rand, and worthy of emulation. It is an insult to the best of what she was to imitate her in her weaknesses (or to to fake reality by pretending she had no weaknesses).

Bill P

[Brant Gaede]

While I mostly agree with what you say, Barbara, AR didn't tell us these things--her estate said she wrote them as her own private notes, and notes that we have to assume have been heavily edited until the originals are produced. Maybe she intended they would eventually become public, but hardly with the expectation they would defend the murderer. She did stop writing that novel, afterall. I'd guess she forgot about them, frankly.

--Brant

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Another thought just occurred to me about my comments on love at first sight.

Those who believe in love at first sight in the all-or-nothing manner Rand did... don't they also have to believe in hate at first sight? All-or-nothing hate?

It's a stretch, I know, but wouldn't that be a reason, or at least a part of a reason, Rand was so unconcerned about Hickman's murder of a "common people" girl? And his depraved treatment of her father?

Maybe, in her musings, way down underneath, she allowed for hate at first sight in Hickman--that he hated common people and simply hated at first sight the people he wronged? So even though she did not agree with what he did, she understood?

Her description of Hickman's lack of organ for understanding certainly gives off those vibes to me.

All-or-nothing hate at first sight looks an awful lot like how some Objectivists behave. When I think Rand believed in (and practiced) all-or-nothing hate at first sight, sometimes at least, it makes sense to me that they see themselves as correctly practicing Objectivism when they do that. They are aping Rand's bad side, but pretending it's good.

Michael

[Rich Engle]

The article is off-base in so many ways, that is one thing. It seems obvious that he doesn't know Rand past her early influences (what she got from Nietzsche, for instance). You (and he, it appears) can't separate who he's grinding his ax for the most--Rand, or these new, loopy "Objectivists," most of whom have not had enough time or done enough work to fully digest her work and what it might mean to them--lot of light reading and bandwagon-jumping. I think Rand might have always been aware of the possibility that she might develop a loopy cult-of-personality mob. Does anyone really think she would enjoy all these guys in colonial garb running around with picket signs? I can't see it. From what I've seen/heard out of this group, they generally can't get past her rudiments. I think most of them mean well, and that they are reacting to that refreshing thing that often happens upon exposure to Rand. They just don't have the finesse, nor the intricacies.

As to her fascination with Hickman: You know, she was a writer, and a romantic, and for that matter loved Hollywood movies. These kind of writers gravitate to almost any kind of strong character--even the kind you read about in detective magazines (which, I wouldn't be suprised if she also enjoyed as a guilty pleasure--how many writers have been known to enjoy pulp?). That's how I see her thing about having her kind of face. She was looking at the strength of resolve--the drama. The problem, of course, is that this guy was a sad sub-human packing a set of really bad wires. His parents were nuts. He was psychotic, and I don't know if she ever really got what that means; maybe she generally denied that possibility in people because it saddened her. Dunno.

The article is a mess.

[Chris Grieb]

In 1936 Spencer Tracy stared in Fury, a Fritz Lang film, about a man who narrowly escapes lynching and incineration and seeks revenge. The mob attacking the jail and it going up in flames with Tracy inside is still extremely strong and raw. (Lynch mobs were also depicted in other films including the 1950s Night of the Hunter. Lynching of blacks was a leitmotif of the pre-WWII South and continued, essentially, into the 1960s, if not with actual hanging other forms of murder.) John Hospers told Ayn Rand Fury was one of his favorite films and this helped bond them. People really were much more bigoted and ignorant and subsequently stupider back then.

--Brant

gives Ayn Rand a pass on this one

Brant; I have only seen Fury two or three times but I have found it a very good movie.

I must add that another very good movie about lynching is Intruder in the Dust. It about a very proud black man in the deep South who becomes a suspect in a murder. He is saved by his lawyer's son played by Claud Jarman Jr. The movie is worth seeing.

[jeffrey smith]

Brant; I have only seen Fury two or three times but I have found it a very good movie.

I must add that another very good movie about lynching is Intruder in the Dust. It about a very proud black man in the deep South who becomes a suspect in a murder. He is saved by his lawyer's son played by Claud Jarman Jr. The movie is worth seeing.

Forget the movie; read the book: it's one of Faulkner's best (and also one that's an easy read in comparison to some of his "big" books like Sound and the Fury), although blemished (from our modern POV) by a mild defense of segregation. And it's not only the son, but the lawyer father who plays a strong and admirable role, and also a fairly strong willed Southern lady who's equally concerned about seeing justice done. And of course the aforementioned black man who values his self esteem (to cast an Objectivist light on it) more than he does his physical survival.

It's essentially Faulkner's take on To Kill A Mockingbird (which probably deserves a mention on its own merits in this connection).

Jeffrey S.

Edited March 31, 2010 by jeffrey smith