Birds of a Feather

[william.scherk]

Ms. Stuttle's decision to embrace PARC and kiss up to its author was genuinely novel.

Speaking of unreliable sources.

As if that's an accurate description.

Well, no more accurate, perhaps, than your muffed reporting of ARI's millions devoted to an online university.

Once you dipped a toe into the bathwater of PARC on SolitaryPassion.com, your reputation was fixed. It's just the way things go. For some time, the to and fro on PARC was more or less a team sport, with opinion sliced into two loaves, fer it and agin it. Fully in support, fully in opposition.

It hardly mattered to Lindsay Perigo, for example, that you had penned small pearls of cogent and clear-sighted critiques of PARC over several years, or that you had praised both Robert Campbell and Neil Parille for their systematic and sustained critiques.

Once he and we saw a muffled and rather insubstantial positive mumble about PARC in his playground, you were instantly issued a team jacket.

I don't know whether it was a native decorum or a fine weariness at repeating yourself (repeating critiques of PARC), but the way you slurred out some positive aspects of PARC and made them public without underlining your continuing disdain for its defects played into the hands of the team leaders.

As far as James Valliant was concerned, he saw a new member on his team. He adopted you as his defender -- and you accepted his gratitude for coming to his defense.

Now, James is too stupid and monomaniacal to understand your earlier published criticisms, of course, if he had even read them, so for all intents and purposes, on the playboard as scored at Lindsay's sandbox, you became a PARC-booster. At no time did you issue a principled demurral or even a partial rejection of his gushing thanks.

At no time in that forum did you say, "Not so fast, James, I still think your book is a piece of shit."

So the fanatics of both teams assigned you fully to Team Valliant. Where you remain. That is just the way things go when you aren't forthright, when you can't or won't assemble your opinions in a firm, global, consistent, pattern.

But we shouldn't, after all, hold you to a standard that you have never accepted. You are not prone to write essays, to start and sustain a discussion thread, to write lengthy structured analyses in which you thoroughly examine a topic. Not a fault, a feature of your talent. You are a talented proofreader and niggler, not suited for grand summaries and 'on one foot' declarations . . .

That said, you surely must understand that on the big black and white screaming scoreboard of Visitors/Demons and Home/Angels, Ellen Stuttle is now seen as a supporter of both James Valliant and Lindsay Perigo.

It may be a caricature, and an unfair one, but your talents at writing and exposition simply don't allow you to lay out your positions in a broad and coherent form that would let folks see the nuances and 'on the one hand's that form your opinions.

In sum, your opinions on PARC are scattered far and wide in a sprawling archipelago of posts. Few are willing to list or summarize your positions, least of all you.

So, when James touchingly thanked you (in his one-eyed way), and you muffed your chance to nuance your way out of a place he reserved for you on his front bench, the case was closed. Ellen Stuttle had gone over to the Home Team.

Sad, not particularly fair or rational, but hey.

Incidentally, up-thread you ask what explains my interest . . . this puzzles me. Are you not in possession of at least four score private messages from me? Had it only now occured to you to ask why I had an interest? And, seriously, could you not sketch out to your own satisfaction my motives, given the evidence of my many years on Objectivish forums?

Gah.

Edited September 25, 2010 by william.scherk

[Robert Campbell]

As far as James Valliant was concerned, he saw a new member on his team. He adopted you as his defender -- and you accepted his gratitude for coming to his defense.

Now, James is too stupid and monomaniacal to understand your earlier published criticisms, of course, if he had even read them, so for all intents and purposes, on the playboard as scored at Lindsay's sandbox, you became a PARC-booster. At no time did you issue a principled demurral or even a partial rejection of his gushing thanks.

At no time in that forum did you say, "Not so fast, James, I still think your book is a piece of shit."

To WSS's astute analysis, I shall merely add one point:

Had Ms. Stuttle publicly stated that she still thought PARC was CRAP, her tactical objectives would not have been served.

Robert Campbell

[James Heaps-Nelson]

Robert,

I think that the ultimate problem for "open Objectivism" is the some of the same conservatism when it come to promising new work in complex systems, psychology and neuroscience. They are willing to present on these topics, debate them and have coffee table discussions on them. However, they are unwilling to put a stake in the ground and do significant new research on them. So for those of us who are deeply interested in these topics, it is now better to simply go to the source for new progress in these fields. What more does Objectivism have to contribute? It's not radical anymore.

As for ARI, the deeply embarrassing anti-science mindset they engender should give anyone pause. The flat earth pronouncements by their leadership reminds me of the Mormon leadership or the Politburo where you have wait around for some decrepit old carcass to expire before actual progress can be made. Of course, the pretense and irony of pretending to uphold a philosophy for the men of the mind is lost on them.

Jim

[Ellen Stuttle]

As far as James Valliant was concerned, he saw a new member on his team. He adopted you as his defender -- and you accepted his gratitude for coming to his defense.

Now, James is too stupid and monomaniacal to understand your earlier published criticisms, of course, if he had even read them, so for all intents and purposes, on the playboard as scored at Lindsay's sandbox, you became a PARC-booster. At no time did you issue a principled demurral or even a partial rejection of his gushing thanks.

At no time in that forum did you say, "Not so fast, James, I still think your book is a piece of shit."

To WSS's astute analysis, I shall merely add one point:

Had Ms. Stuttle publicly stated that she still thought PARC was CRAP, her tactical objectives would not have been served.

Robert Campbell

I had no tactical objectives to be served. I don't think that PARC is CRAP. I think it's badly executed. It misquotes sources, it argues in a backward direction and with hyperbole in the negative case (doubly so in the "soul of a rapist" coda). To be an effective book, it should have proceeded by focusing on the positive case. I think it's a very flawed book. But, no, I don't think it's crap. I think it makes good points defending Ayn Rand which tend to get buried.

I don't consider WSS's analysis astute. I think Valliant has a much more accurate idea of what I think of his book than either of you, and that WSS is misinterpreting even what Valliant was saying in his thank you post. Note he used some such phrase as "whatever our differences." And I wouldn't have issued a "partial rejection of his gushing thanks" (though I was embarrassed by the effusiveness) because I think I understood what he was thanking me for -- for being willing to keep thinking about issues the book raises.

He had read at least quite a few of my earlier published criticisms, btw. For a time there was a back and forth between OL and SOLO, with me asking questions here which he was then responding to there.

Ellen

[Ellen Stuttle]

Ms. Stuttle's decision to embrace PARC and kiss up to its author was genuinely novel.

Speaking of unreliable sources.

As if that's an accurate description.

Well, no more accurate, perhaps, than your muffed reporting of ARI's millions devoted to an online university.

Robert chronically distorts what I say -- and what other people against whom he has a beef say also. It's a habitually used rhetorical technique.

My writing in a hasty post the word "university" instead of "educational program" is hardly comparable.

I found the announcement. It was in the February 2010 "Impact."

The heading is:

"$5 Million Gift for New Ayn Rand Campus Initiative"

[....]

The gift was provided by an individual donor who wishes to remain anonymous and who challenges other donors to contribut additional funds. It is the largest single donation ARI has ever received.

The Ayn Rand Campus Initiative, mentioned at last year's objectivist summer conference, will implement a far-reaching, Web-based program [...]. It will offer courses for all levels of students--from the high school student who has just read his first Ayn Rand novel [...] to the future new Intellectual taking advanced courses in ARI's existing Objectivist Academic Center

Incidentally, up-thread you ask what explains my interest . . . this puzzles me. Are you not in possession of at least four score private messages from me? Had it only now occured to you to ask why I had an interest? And, seriously, could you not sketch out to your own satisfaction my motives, given the evidence of my many years on Objectivish forums?

Gah.

I understand, sort of, why you developed an interest in O'ist weblists. What I was wondering about up-thread is why you would care what's going on with ARI. Seems an awfully weird thread for you to choose to reappear on.

Ellen

[Neil Parille]

Ellen,

You write:

To be an effective book, it [PARC] should have proceeded by focusing on the positive case. I think it's a very flawed book. But, no, I don't think it's crap. I think it makes good points defending Ayn Rand which tend to get buried.

Valliant had four main sources: (1) Barbara's bio; (2) Nathaniel's memoirs; (3) Walker's TARC; and (4) Rand diaries.

There is some positive material in all four, but I'd say they are all to a fair extent negative (in particular Walker's book). Even Rand's journals don't put her in a good light.

Setting forth a positive case (to the extent that it is possible to write a more positive book than Barbara's and still be accurate, which I doubt) would have required (at a minimum) Valliant to interview people who knew Rand and read the interviews done by the Archives. For whatever reason he didn't want to do this.

I'd point at that an exaustively researched book that uses archival material (Goddess of the Market) is still fairly negative. In some sense it is more critical of Rand than Passion.

-Neil Parille

Edited September 25, 2010 by Neil Parille

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Robert chronically distorts what I say -- and what other people against whom he has a beef say also. It's a habitually used rhetorical technique.

Without agreeing, isn't this what Valliant does nonstop?

He uses rhetorical distortion so much that it is one of the themes of PARC.

Michael

[Robert Campbell]

I had no tactical objectives to be served.

"I am not a crook"—Trick Nixon

"I did not have sex with that woman"—Bill Clinton

"I had no tactical objectives to be served"—Ellen Stuttle

I think Valliant has a much more accurate idea of what I think of his book than either of you […]

Since Ms. Stuttle refuses to post any of her private emails to Mr. Valliant, how could anyone else know what she has been leading him to believe she thinks of his book?

Robert Campbell

[Robert Campbell]

What Ms. Stutlle said to Mr. Scherk:

What I was wondering about up-thread is why you would care what's going on with ARI. Seems an awfully weird thread for you to choose to reappear on.

What Ms. Stuttle meant (hat-tip to Brant):

I am the only authority on this particular subject. Therefore, please dry up and blow away.

Robert Campbell

[Robert Campbell]

Valliant had four main sources: (1) Barbara's bio; (2) Nathaniel's memoirs; (3) Walker's TARC; and (4) Rand diaries.

Which is why Valliant had no real positive case to make.

With the first three sources, he had to denounce, twist, misrender, or bury under an avalanche of desperately sophistical argumentation.

With the final source, he had to surround with hectoring commentary, urging readers to believe Jim Valliant instead of their own eyes.

The book's subtitle isn't incidental.

Ms. Stuttle vainly imagines that Valliant shouldn't have framed his book as "The Case against the Brandens."

There wasn't any other way that, with his mentality and "research" methods, he could have framed it.

Robert Campbell

PS. Complaining that PARC fell short because it didn't build a positive case for Ayn Rand's character and actions is like complaining that it fell short because it was written by an individual who didn't know Ayn Rand. Does anyone really think that Leonard Peikoff would have entrusted this particular mission to a writer who did know Ayn Rand?

[Brant Gaede]

Ellen: If you don't think PARC is crap it must still be stuck in your duodenum.

--Brant

chew thoroughly before swallowing

[Mark]

You need the hide a rhinoceros to participate in any of these Objectivist forums.

I only skimmed Robert Campbell's posts, usually skip them but since I started this thread ...

> ... Ms. Stuttle is one of the least credible sources imaginable

That's ridiculous. She’s one of the best people here.

> Ayn Rand spent the rest of her days [after "NBI blew up"] acting ambivalent about the idea [of "an organized Objectivist movement"].

Ayn Rand was against it, no ambivalence at all in her position.

In Robert Campbell next post:

> Ms. Stuttle senses her spotlight being blocked.

And it goes down from there. Members like Robert Campbell spoil any discussion.

In yet another post he says, after covertly comparing Ellen Stuttle to Richard Nixon and William Clinton:

> Since Ms. Stuttle refuses to post any of her private emails to Mr. Valliant, how could anyone else know what she has been leading him to believe she thinks of his book?

Because she told us. If RC doesn’t believe her about this, why believe her about anything else? Anyway, if Robert Campbell doesn't post all of his private emails he should stop posting period, LOL.

Again I only skimmed WSS's post. He describes others' reactions to ES and ascribes them to her. It isn't her responsibility what Valliant and Perigo think. I'm half-way glad he posted though because Ellen's response was a nice in-a-nutshell account of her position.

Edited September 25, 2010 by Mark

[kiaer.ts]

Her Name Ayn Rand Is

I met a caluminst from an antique land

Who said that well what "Sherk-Jerk" wrote he'd read:

That Cambell and Stuttle in web-desert stand

Casting aspersions, sunk in them half up to their heads.

Each turn of phrase and snide remark

Tells that its crafter too oft that Passion read

Which second-handed babbles in the dark

With rapist soul to leave the reader dead.

And from James Valiant these plaints appear:

"Her divine name Ayn Rand is, born sans sins!

Never her dare blame for her own fear

Or to account hold for what she begins!

Branden's love and all deserved she it,

Were even in a wheelchair she to sit!"

Edited September 26, 2010 by Ted Keer

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Mark,

There's a lot of history I presume you do not know and you are jumping in pretty late.

If that's the way things look to you, fine.

But I suggest using a bit of common sense and realize that people of the stature of Robert Campbell (and, hell, even WSS) are not mere uninformed name-callers.

What's more, most all of the substance is online if you have the patience to find it.

Michael

[Robert Campbell]

> ... Ms. Stuttle is one of the least credible sources imaginable

That's ridiculous. She's one of the best people here.

Look...

I don't even know who you are.

I do know that you participate very rarely in this forum, and that you hardly ever appeared on SOLOP when Ms. Stuttle and I were both active there.

So I have to ask how you could know whether Ms. Stuttle is a credible source concerning Ayn Rand's life and character, Jim Valliant's book, the internal politics of the Ayn Rand Institute, or other contentious matters within Rand-land.

Or how you would be in a position to judge her conduct toward such sterling characters as Lindsay Perigo.

Or how you are prepared to evaluate her assertion that Harry Binswanger is genuinely enthusiastic about David Harriman's book, and wouldn't have posted his two-paragraph review at amazon because he was being begged (or instructed) to show support for Peikoff's protégé.

> Ayn Rand spent the rest of her days [after "NBI blew up"] acting ambivalent about the idea [of "an organized Objectivist movement"].

Ayn Rand was against it, no ambivalence at all in her position.

Bullshit.

I've read her post-1968 articles, and listened to her question and answer periods.

I hope you have, too.

But since you haven't bothered to read my posts...

If Rand was totally against such a movement, why did she continue to list in her publications courses taught by Leonard Peikoff and other remaining members of her circle? Why did she endorse Peikoff's 1976 course as an exposition of her philosophy? Why did she keep drawing a bright line between "Objectivists" and "students of Objectivism." Etc. etc.

I mean, you wouldn't say that Ayn Rand's endorsement of Nathaniel Branden's lecture courses expressed her firm opposition to an Objectivist movement. Right?

In Robert Campbell next post:

> Since Ms. Stuttle refuses to post any of her private emails to Mr. Valliant, how could anyone else know what she has been leading him to believe she thinks of his book?

Because she told us. If RC doesn't believe her about this, why believe her about anything else?

Ms. Stuttle has pretended that while acting as unappointed defense counsel to Mr. Valliant in public, she asked him tough questions about his and his wife's, er, misadventures at Wikipedia in private.

Her public demeanor during that period at time was not consistent with what she assures us was her private practice. In fact, she ripped other participants at SOLOP, including me, for asking Mr. Valliant such questions in public, and applauded his refusal to answer them.

I asked her to produce her email to Mr. Valliant that, according to one of her more recent posts here, was full of "trap" questions about Wikipedia and the activities there of his alter ego, AnonIP160.

She has refused, repeatedly.

If the email was as she has said it was, why not post it?

Ms. Stuttle has been caught in other lies and stretches. For instance, she pretends to have been tight with Allan and Joan Blumenthal, but has made excuses for not asking them to comment on matters that she professes to be consumingly concerned about, such as whether Frank O'Connor was an alcoholic.

I don't think Ms. Stuttle has the same incentive to lie about the philosophy of Karl Popper, or various issues in 20th century physics, that she presently has concerning her kinda-sorta-endorsement of Mr. Valliant and his book, all premised on alleged virtues no one else can find in them.

Hence, I make a distinction.

You may have done similarly, at one time or another.

Robert Campbell

[Ellen Stuttle]

Or how she pretends to know that Harry Binswanger is genuinely enthusiastic about David Harriman's book, and wouldn't have posted his two-paragraph review at amazon because he was being begged (or instructed) to show support for Peikoff's protégé.

I told you how I know Binswanger is genuinely enthusiastic. Because of what he said on his own list. I grant that you don't know he's genuinely enthusiastic. I don't know if he was asked to post something on Amazon or not, and didn't say I knew that. I don't think Harry takes instructions from Leonard. The history between them indicates otherwise.

In Robert Campbell next post:

> Since Ms. Stuttle refuses to post any of her private emails to Mr. Valliant, how could anyone else know what she has been leading him to believe she thinks of his book?

Because she told us. If RC doesn't believe her about this, why believe her about anything else?

There are posts on SOLO in which I continued to say I thought the book was badly done. I didn't say anything to him about his book in the few private exchanges I had with him, but things he said indicate that he knew I still had serious criticism of the book. Casey Fahy got that message. He sent me a note via Linz in which it was clear that he'd understood from reading the SOLO material.

Ms. Stuttle has pretended that while acting as unappointed defense counsel to Mr. Valliant in public, she asked him tough questions in private about his and his wife's, er, misadventures at Wikipedia.

Her public demeanor during that period at time was not consistent with what she assures us was her private practice of asking Jim Valliant tough questions. In fact, she ripped others, including me, for asking Mr. Valliant such questions in public, and applauded his refusal to answer them.

More getting it wrong.

1) The email I sent to Valliant with questions about the Wikipedia "misadventures" was after the talk had mostly died down on SOLO. It was about a week before I left for Budapest (and then Vienna) in July 2009. (He was both busy and ill at the time and didn't respond until about the time I returned.)

2) The sort of questions I asked him were not the sort you were asking, most of which I thought then -- and still think -- it was none of your business to be asking. All I wanted to find out was whether he was telling the truth about its being Holly's project and about her having done the bulk of the posting.

I asked her to produce her email to Mr. Valliant that was supposedly full of "trap" questions about Wikipedia and the activities there of his alter ego, AnonIP160.

She has refused, repeatedly.

If the email was as she has said it was, why not post it?

Same answer, Robert: No.

Ms. Stuttle has been caught in other lies and stretches. For instance, she pretends to have been tight with Allan and Joan Blumenthal but has made a series of excuses for not asking them to comment on matters that she professes to be consumingly concerned about, such as whether Frank O'Connor was an alcoholic.

I have never "pretend[ed] to have been tight with Allan and Joan Blumenthal." I said repeatedly the last time you (and MSK) tried that charge that I'd had few conversations with Joan and that my conversations -- of which there were many -- with Allan were when I was taking classes with him. I never said anything different than that in all the posts of mine on OL where I reported things he'd said, mostly about AR on the subject of music. I also said that I haven't seen him since November 1980 and that the last time I contacted him was just a brief note at Christmas-time, 1981.

I've gone to the bother of looking back through all of the 146 posts (to date) on OL in which I reference Allan Blumenthal. None of them implies my being "tight" with him. And there are several which clearly state that I haven't seen him since 1980.

For instance, this was among the first in which I referenced him:

Valliant cites as the source (footnote 54) pg. 247 of Walker's book. Does anyone here have that book? I'm curious as to exactly what Walker quotes Allan as having said, since the reported quote, as rendered, is nothing I can imagine Allan ever saying. (Maybe he said that AR's ideas specifically on psychology were a projection of her own psychology; that could be plausible. But unless Allan transmogrified into a different person in the years since I knew him -- i.e., since 1980, granted, a quarter century -- the very idea that Allan ever endorsed any form of "psychological determinism" is bizarre.)

And this from November 2006:

Allan is vey much alive -- and very much not retired. He still sees patients, but many fewer than he used to. He spends most of his time now at the piano, and he and Joan travel to the many musical amateur contests for people in the medical profession. His playing is light years better than it ever was, it's truly concert caliber -- and I'm delighted to say that he's a very happy man. And yes, they still live in New York.

That's lovely to hear. I had a special fondness for Allan. He could aggravate me, and I once had a parting-of-the-ways altercation with him (which was smoothed over after he split with AR), but even when I felt angry with him, I always had a particular tenderness for Allan. I'm ever so glad he's doing well. And I bet his piano playing is a joy to the ears. He always was good (it was his interpretive sensitivity which I fell for first, at a recital he gave in 1970, before I even talked with him in person). If he's gotten still better...

Ellen

And this from June 30, 2008:

[....] The last I saw [Allan] was at the end of 1980, which of course was a long while before he was interviewed by Walker. [....] Also, although I haven't seen Allan myself since 1980, my husband last saw him, and talked with him for awhile, in 1992 at an IOS meeting. What Larry reports Allan as saying then doesn't really mesh with that Walker attribution.

Ellen

Addition: Nor did I make any "series of excuses" about not contacting Allan. I said, and repeat, I am not going to write to him just to ask that sort of question after all these years. I'd consider this a very impolite intrusion.

Edited September 26, 2010 by Ellen Stuttle

[Ellen Stuttle]

> Ayn Rand spent the rest of her days [after "NBI blew up"] acting ambivalent about the idea [of "an organized Objectivist movement"].

Ayn Rand was against it, no ambivalence at all in her position.

Bullshit.

Maybe you imagine that I haven't read her post-1968 articles, or listened to her question and answer periods.

But since you haven't bothered to read my posts...

If Rand was totally against such a movement, why did she continue to list in her publications courses taught by Leonard Peikoff and other remaining members of her circle? Why did she endorse Peikoff's 1976 course as an exposition of her philosophy? Why did she keep drawing a bright line between "Objectivists" and "students of Objectivism." Etc. etc.

I mean, you wouldn't say that Ayn Rand's endorsement of Nathaniel Branden's lecture courses expressed her firm opposition to an Objectivist movement. Right?

I think you're drawing an incorrect comparison. The courses given with Rand's approval after the split -- Peikoff's, Allan Blumenthal's music course, and I think a course by Mary Ann Rukavina -- weren't the same sort of set-up as an organization like NBI. And why she kept drawing a bright line is because she didn't want people speaking as "Objectivists" and misrepresenting her ideas. She'd had bad experiences with this. She explained in the "Statement of Policy" excerpts from which I've posted three times.

Ellen

[Ellen Stuttle]

Ted, your post #38 is desecration of an enormously great poem.

Ellen

[Robert Campbell]

I think you're drawing an incorrect comparison.

Ms. Stuttle will of course claim that any comparison between Ayn Rand's behavior and policies before 1968 and after 1968 must be incorrect.

Because otherwise she cannot do as the Valliantoids do: load blame on Nathaniel Branden for things that Rand kept right on doing after giving him the boot.

In point of fact, there was plenty of continuity pre- and post-1968, even though NBI was gone and Rand never tried to reconstitute it, and she never went quite so far as anointing Leonard Peikoff as her substitute "intellectual heir."

The courses given with Rand's approval after the split -- Peikoff's, Allan Blumenthal's music course, and I think a course by Mary Ann Rukavina -- weren't the same sort of set-up as an organization like NBI. And why she kept drawing a bright line is because she didn't want people speaking as "Objectivists" and misrepresenting her ideas. She'd had bad experiences with this. She explained in the "Statement of Policy" excerpts from which I've posted three times.

Pre- and post-1968, Rand marketed her ideas as Objectivism, insisted on exclusive control of what was considered Objectivism, periodically demanded shows of obedience from her followers, etc. Her remarks about how the mildest deviation from Objectivism would lead to "contradictions" (Ford Hall Forum 1971) or would constitute "flights of fancy" (first issue of The Objectivist Forum, 1980) postdate the expulsion of Nathaniel Branden.

The Peikoff courses and those offered by others replaced the NBI courses. With the launch of his Philosophy of Objectivism course in 1976, Nathaniel Branden's Basic Principles lectures were "definitively" replaced. Barbara Weiss, who worked for Rand, was directly involved with the taped courses. When Rand was no longer running her own periodical, The Objectivist Calendar was launched (by Weiss) not just to announce Rand's infrequent public appearances, but to advertise taped courses by Peikoff and others being given in various locales, and public appearances by members of Rand's remaining circle.

Canceling subscriptions continued after 1968, at least until The Objectivist closed in 1971.

Excommunications continued after 1968: Philip and Kay Nolte Smith in 1973, Robert and Beatrice Hessen in 1981.

Even a watered-down therapy culture continued, as Ms. Stuttle herself admitted. It ended only when Allan Blumenthal broke with Ayn Rand in 1977.

And, despite the official statements that Nathaniel Branden's old articles and Who Is Ayn Rand were canonical, Rand initiated the "airbrushing" of positive references to Nathaniel Branden and his published articles from reprints of her own works.

There is, therefore, much more continuity between NBI-era practices, post NBI-era practices, and Ayn Rand Institute practices than those who want to blame everything on Nathaniel Branden wish to admit.

ARI may have been established in violation of verbal requests that Rand made of Leonard Peikoff, but even that is unclear.

The main differences are that ARI was named after Rand, not after a disciple (and without receiving the title "intellectual heir," Peikoff had to confer it on himself); that ARI did not try to reestablish a therapeutic culture (or Rand's style of aesthetic policing); and that ARI did without the "student of Objectivism" designation (already ditched by Harry Binswanger after Rand's death).

There's no point in constantly and obtusely referring to those 1968 publications, which participants here are all familiar with. Rand did not entirely mean what she said about not wanting to lead a movement. As the historical records shows, her actual behavior was not always consistent with her official proclamations.

Robert Campbell

[kiaer.ts]

Ted, your post #38

Her Name Ayn Rand Is

I met a caluminst* from an antique land

Who said that well what "Sherk-Jerk" wrote he'd read:

That Cambell and Stuttle in web-desert stand

Casting aspersions, sunk in them half up to their heads.

Each turn of phrase and snide remark

Tells that its crafter too oft that Passion read

Which second-handed babbles in the dark

With rapist soul to leave the reader dead.

And from James Valiant these plaints appear:

"Her divine name Ayn Rand is, born sans sins!

Never her dare blame for her own fear

Or to account hold for what she begins!

Branden's love and all deserved she it,

Were even in a wheelchair she to sit!"

is desecration of an enormously great poem.

Ellen

My "desecration" in no way lowers the value of the poem or this thread.

Can you say the same for your metastatic feud with Robert?

(I otherwise find you both fascinating fonts of knowledge.)

(*The calumnist is Mark from "ARI Watch", which is hinted at from the context of the original post.)

Edited September 26, 2010 by Ted Keer

[Ellen Stuttle]

Ms. Stuttle will of course claim that any comparison between Ayn Rand's behavior and policies before 1968 and after 1968 must be incorrect.

Some comparisons are correct. She kept the same apartment and the same name.

(The post is facetious, folks, lest anyone think it's meant seriously. No point in arguing against Robert's straw construction.)

Ellen

[Mark]

Robert Campbell wrote:

> Ms. Stuttle will *of course* claim that any comparison between Ayn Rand’s behavior and policies before 1968 and after 1968 must be incorrect.

??? Here’s the comparison that RC had made: advertising lectures by LP and others, versus approving an organization like NBI. RC seemed to think they’re equivalent, when they aren’t.

I don’t have it in front of me but I believe in Ayn Rand’s “To Whom It May Concern” article (1968) she says that she very reluctantly got roped into associating with the movement aspect of NBI. After this experience her opposition was firm. The following is from that article as quoted on Per-Olof Samuelsson’s website:

“I never wanted and do not now want to be a leader of a ‘movement’. I do approve of a philosophical or intellectual movement, in the sense of a growing trend among a number of independent individuals sharing the same ideas. But an organized movement is a different matter.”

The article from which Ellen quoted -- “A Statement of Policy” -- came soon after that one.

Ted Keer wrote:

> My “desecration” in no way lowers the value of the poem ...

So long as you don’t recollect TK’s trashy take-off while reading it (Shelley’s “Ozymandias”).

> or this thread.

The only value of anything TK has posted on this thread comes from the reaction of other posters.

Edited September 26, 2010 by Mark

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I don't have it in front of me but I believe in Ayn Rand's "To Whom It May Concern" article (1968) she says that she very reluctantly got roped into associating with the movement aspect of NBI. After this experience her opposition was firm. The following is from that article as quoted on Per-Olof Samuelsson's website:

"I never wanted and do not now want to be a leader of a 'movement'. I do approve of a philosophical or intellectual movement, in the sense of a growing trend among a number of independent individuals sharing the same ideas. But an organized movement is a different matter."

Mark,

I judge people by what they say and what they do of their own free will. Often there is a discrepancy, and when there is one, I go with what they do as a better indicator of what they really intend.

While Rand did say what you posted on one occasion, she also talked years later about the "The progress of Objectivism" in the closing statement of the Ayn Rand Letter, and the context was political. She wasn't talking about progress in deepening the philosophy, but progress in the spread of Objectivism and its impact on politics throughout the world (it was a part where she discussed Gerald Ford and Malcolm Fraser). That sounds pretty movement-like to me, albeit not organized in the manner NBI was.

Anyway, that's what she said. What she did after the closing of NBI was foster a group of disciples around her and insist that they spread Objectivist ideas according to strict rules that she laid down--starting with Rule No. 1: Nobody can speak to the public directly in her name, nor for Objectivism, without her express consent and agreement. But they can speak as Tier 2 folks if they acknowledge this condition (in publications like The Objectivist Forum and The Intellectual Activist, where she rewarded the adherence of her disciples by publishing in those magazines).

The actions she performed over the years, despite protestations to the contrary, do not add up to abandoning a movement, but instead, going back to the beginning and attempting to make sure the movement is carried on--later when it starts growing--in a manner she could control. That is organized.

If she had walked away from all that and only published sporadic nonfiction pieces in, say, Time magazine or whatever, or had gone back to writing books, I would agree that she had given up on an organized movement.

Michael

[Robert Campbell]

No point in arguing against Robert's straw construction.

When all else fails, sniff and sneer.

Robert Campbell

[Robert Campbell]

I don't have it in front of me but I believe in Ayn Rand's "To Whom It May Concern" article (1968) she says that she very reluctantly got roped into associating with the movement aspect of NBI. After this experience her opposition was firm. The following is from that article as quoted on Per-Olof Samuelsson's website:

"I never wanted and do not now want to be a leader of a 'movement'. I do approve of a philosophical or intellectual movement, in the sense of a growing trend among a number of independent individuals sharing the same ideas. But an organized movement is a different matter."

Mark,

How reliable a source do you consider "To Whom It May Concern" to be?

The whole point of that article, and its attendant announcements, was to justify her expulsion and denunciation of Nathaniel and Barbara Branden while concealing her actual reasons for expelling and denouncing them. Remember, this is the article that falsely accused NB of financial malfeasance, and blamed him for lack of zeal and attentiveness in cracking down on campus Objectivist and Ayn Rand clubs. (That last complaint against Nathaniel Branden has never, to my knowledge, been made by any other person, living or dead.)

The "never wanted and do not now want to be leader of a 'movement'" needs to be interpreted accordingly.

I suspect that Rand was genuinely somewhat ambivalent about the role.

She lacked the management skill to build and keep an organized mass movement, and in any case didn't like organizational work nearly enough to want to spend the time on it. With NBI she could delegate the management part to Nathaniel and Barbara Branden. Had her personal relationship with Nathaniel continued as she wished it would, would she ever have professed anything short of total satisfaction with the organized movement part?

After the fall of NBI, she was more wary of delegating than she had been. Not that it would have mattered much; nothing on the scale of NBI could have been built back up with the talent on hand. Leonard Peikoff lacked Nathaniel's charisma. Neither Peikoff nor the younger disciples he was cultivating (e.g., Harry Binswanger, Peter Scwhartz) had Nathaniel and Babara's business acumen or management skill.

Rand did, however, want to be a leader. She wanted a brand-named philosophy, complete control of the brand and the message, absolute deference from her followers, and right up to her death she maintained an entourage of senior disciples who gave presentations of her philosophy to junior acolytes with her endorsement.

It's interesting that the Valliantoids (who want to deny that Rand had any authoritarian tendencies, or to blame any authoritarian behavior on Nathaniel Branden ... or something) and many "open Objectivists" (who want an end to the authoritarian stuff) converge in putting too much weight on that single don't-want-to-lead-a-movement statement.

The Valliantoids want to exalt Rand, keep TheBrandens in the outer darkness, and legitimize the Leonardine Papacy.

The "open Objectivists" want organized Objectivism that adheres to the philosophical system but rejects Peikovian usurpations and excesses.

In fact, Leonard Peikoff has carried on with an attitude toward keeping and controlling an Objectivist movement that is authentically Randian.

The Leonardine Papacy just happens to perpetuate some of her worst decisions, least admirable ideas, and least exemplary traits of character, while miserably failing to replicate her brilliance.

Robert