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Wednesday, September 7, 2005 - 5:39pmSanction this postReply
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There's an article that may be of some interest just published about Ayn Rand on the occasion of her centenary, ”Who Needs Ayn Rand?”,  by Algis Valiunas, in the September, 2005 issue of Commentary.
 
Here are a couple of choice quotes carrying on the ad hominem tradition of dealing with Ayn Rand:
 
“In Rand’s psychology, reason unfailingly determines emotion, never the other way around.  But in her own erotic life Rand was at the mercy of a turbulent unreason that pulled her under even as she burbled on about her unimpeachable rationality.  As she could only love an extraordinary man, she endowed the man she married, Frank O’Connor, with all the qualities of a hero, even of a god.  In fact, in almost everyone’s eyes but hers, O’Connor, a failure as a movie actor, was a raging mediocrity.” 
 
“When Rand was sixty-one and Branden thirty-six, the sexual fire went out for him and he found a younger lover.  Rand nearly went insane in her jealousy.  Maintaining that she was entirely reasonable and right, and Branden purely evil, she destroyed his professional reputation and banished him from the Randian kingdom where he had been until then the crown prince.  Heroic reason, heroic freedom, heroic love ended, as they began, in folly.”


(Edited by Casey Fahy on 9/07, 5:48pm)


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Post 1

Wednesday, September 7, 2005 - 7:45pmSanction this postReply
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The obvious answer to the question, "Who needs Ayn Rand?" is that clearly an awful lot of people need Ayn Rand. I think Algis Valiunas should be asking the question, "Who needs Algis Valiunas?" whenever staring in the mirror. The passing of time and a future generation of history books will answer that very same question, whether Algis likes it or not. We'll see if anyone remembers the name Algis Valiunas decades after they've departed. Not to mention whether his/her writings are still selling tens of thousands of books each year for over 50 years after their first publication. Call me crazy, but something tells me it's highly unlikely that will happen.

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Wednesday, September 7, 2005 - 7:58pmSanction this postReply
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Let's see, in only two paragraphs, the author:

(i) oversimplifies her view of the relationship between reason and emotion,

(ii) attacks her ability to allow reason to monitor emotion,

(iii) takes a side swipe at her general rationality,

(iv) attacks her honesty with regard to "making up" what she saw in her husband...while

(v) giving over-the-top religious overtones to her view of him,

(vi) takes a side swipe at her husband...

And that's just the first paragraph. Next he:

(vii) exaggerates the nature of her reaction to a failed relationship,

(viii) oversimplifies as purely romantic her own reasons for her actions against Branden,

(ix) uses a coy sarcastic phrase to refer to the position Branden had held, and...

(x) ends with a coy ironic series of uses of the word 'heroic'.

An awful lot of character assassination to accomplish in so short a space.

Phil

Post 3

Wednesday, September 7, 2005 - 8:04pmSanction this postReply
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Sounds almost as bad as one review I read that explained the non self sacrifice dirrective of Objectivism thusly:

"You shouldn't sacrifice yourself to others or allow yourself to be sacrificed to others"

So basically they were saying a penny saved is a penny saved. 

Frustrated the hell out of me.

---Landon


Post 4

Wednesday, September 7, 2005 - 8:38pmSanction this postReply
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Commententary used to be an intellectually respectable publication, but in the last few years it has become just a more pretentious (and thus even more loathsome) step-sister to National Review and the like. It is now as honest as The Daily Worker but much less interesting. Gag/yawn.

Post 5

Wednesday, September 7, 2005 - 9:20pmSanction this postReply
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Marvin,
"Who needs Algis Valiunas?"
That was the first thing that popped into my mind. Never heard of this guy before.

Michael


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Wednesday, September 7, 2005 - 10:40pmSanction this postReply
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I need Ayn Rand.

--Brant


Post 7

Thursday, September 8, 2005 - 1:46amSanction this postReply
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I need Ayn Rand.

--Brant
Fine, Brant, but I think the more important question is do you need Algid Vaginas?

J


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Post 8

Thursday, September 8, 2005 - 8:34amSanction this postReply
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I don't need Algis either.

I'll say one thing for James Valliant's book - the publication of Ayn Rand's journal entries totally disproves the idea that she was "insane with jealousy" or irrational about this unhappy episode in her life!  You'd think if a person were disposed to flights of "turbulent unreason" they would surely be expressed in her own personal journals that were not intended for publication.  But there's none of that!


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Thursday, September 8, 2005 - 9:49amSanction this postReply
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“But there's none of that!”

The book contains *selections* from her journals.

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Post 10

Thursday, September 8, 2005 - 12:32pmSanction this postReply
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I know for a fact that there was no creative editing of the journals of Ayn Rand for Valliant's book. I helped transcribe them. Honestly, I am so tired of this. Even after Valliant has proven that there are gross misrepresentations and omissions of entire chunks of reality in both of the Brandens' books that all conveniently cast a negative light on Ayn Rand, Rand's critics continue to give the Brandens the benefit of the doubt and continue to doubt the evidence from Rand's own pen. Nearly 100% of the journal entries were included. Only a couple of repetitive entries and references to people other than those involved in the Branden situation were ommitted, because they added nothing that was not already included or because they were irrelevant, respectively. PERIOD. Some day, the raw manuscripts will be available for inspection, of course. How stupid do you think the author (who had absolute freedom to publish them in their entirety from ARI) would have to be to try to get away with distorting the record in his book only to have the raw evidence come out and discredit his work forever? DUH! As a prosecuting attorney, he knows better than anyone in the peanut gallery that far from avoiding difficult evidence for one's case, you must address that evidence first and head-on. He did. What was fascinating was that the character of Rand was revealed to be something utterly different from the character described in the Brandens' books. Quite frankly, I was half-dreading that the impression this Commentary writer got from the Brandens' books would be given some kind of credence by Rand's own journal entries, and I was amazed, gratified, and outraged when they proved Rand was nothing like the picture they had painted. Unfortunately, some won't let go of that portrait of Rand, even when the evidence is staring them in the face. Now we are asked to believe that, even though Rand is shown to be consistently reasonable, patient, and generous in her labors to help Branden sort out the fraudulent psychological issues he kept bringing to her, that maybe there are bits where she proved to be a completely different kind of person that were excised from the text. And, of course, it is those who give Rand the benefit of the doubt raised by the overwhelming evidence in her favor who are the religious sycophants, it is those that actually cracked the book and read the evidence for themselves that are deluded, it is those that have come to the conclusion that there was no Mrs. Hyde to Miss Rand's character, after all, who are "branded" as sycophants setting up an impossible goddess to worship. Meanwhile, the "branders" continue to believe Rand was Rand and non-Rand at the same time and in the same respect solely on the basis of the Brandens' accounts, even after their accounts have been proven to be filled with demonstrably false statements and omitted facts. Now who is being reasonable and who are being sycophants here?

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Thursday, September 8, 2005 - 2:35pmSanction this postReply
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Brandens bad, Rand good. Good, good, good! Bad, bad, bad! Opps! Sorry. Bad, bad, bad! Good, good, good! Everybody happy?

--Brant


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Post 12

Thursday, September 8, 2005 - 3:11pmSanction this postReply
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Thanks for the reductio ad absurdum. It's so enlightening. Try addressing the point, Brant. Can't? Then stay out of it. I am NOT happy that crap like this is published in Commentary because Brandenian B.S. has proliferated. But I'm amazed when people who claim to admire the ideas of Ayn Rand are so willing to believe ridiculous things about her just so they can preserve some form of moral equivalency between her and the Brandens. There comes a time when moral equivalency itself becomes a golden calf to be idolized in spite of irrefutable evidence, creating a new cult -- the cult of moral grayness. Ayn Rand was not perfect. But she was innocent. The Brandens are not horror movie monsters -- but they LIED in order to trash Rand and justify their unjustifiable exploitation of her. And those lies have stuck. And those lies are what have been transmitted to the broader world about Rand by publishers and people who wish, by inference, to trash her ideas. Wrap your head around that fact. I think that folks who want to present Rand's ideas to the world with the preface "sure, she was a loon, but..." in hopes that they will sound oh-so-reasonable and defninitely-not-Randroids are kidding themselves. The damage the Brandens have done must be undone in order to shift the spotlight back onto Rand's ideas. The reason those lies were accepted, published and promoted was to smear her ideas -- Doubleday didn't give a crap about restoring the Brandens' reputations, they were after Rand's scalp to destroy her ideas. And the Brandens fed that lucrative market, cashing in on the establishment's desire for something, anything, to slam Rand with other than her ideas. And writers at Commentary are only too happy to reach for that cudgel rather than engage her ideas now. Happy?  

Post 13

Thursday, September 8, 2005 - 1:02pmSanction this postReply
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"Some day, the raw manuscripts will be available for inspection, of course. How stupid do you think the author (who had absolute freedom to publish them in their entirety from ARI) would have to be to try to get away with distorting the record in his book only to have the raw evidence come out and discredit his work forever? DUH!"

And how is it exactly that we KNOW with such certainty that "the raw manuscripts will be available for inspection"?

I'd expect ARI to be much more concerned about maintaining what Leonard Peikoff thinks is the right "image" than about preserving the original journals of one of the great geniuses of the 20th Century and making them available to researchers. It would be difficult for anyone who knows anything about Chris Sciabarra's struggle to examine documents under ARI's control to expect anything else.

DUH!

JR

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Thursday, September 8, 2005 - 3:47pmSanction this postReply
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Why would ARI, if it was so interested in hagiography, sit on AR's private journal entries for all these years when they proved the Brandens were lying?

Just because Dr. Sciabarra has been unsuccessful in gaining access to materials at ARI does not mean they are actively engaged in some kind of dishonesty. And for the record, Dr. Sciabarra himself has written that he has no reason to doubt the validity of Valliant's editing. Moreover, you have no reason to either, Mr. Riggenbach, and your expectation does not constitute evidence.

Finally, Valliant is not affiliated with ARI, he violated Peikoff's own wishes by paying attention to the Brandens, and was given access to these materials, quite to his surprise. Perhaps Peikoff realized that ignoring this issue was not going to make it go away.

How do we know that ARI will release the original documents to the public? Because Valliant reports in his book that Peikoff himself told him so.

(Edited by Casey Fahy on 9/08, 3:49pm)

(Edited by Casey Fahy on 9/08, 3:50pm)


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Thursday, September 8, 2005 - 4:49pmSanction this postReply
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I'm not staying out of anything. Sciabarra published, what, 18,000 words in a critique of Valliant's book, Valliant published a rejoinder (all in Notablog) then Chris closed it out with his.

If you want to continue THAT discussion why don't you do that here instead of coughing up a few paragraphs of yours and Valliant's default position in a mere argument by asseveration? The real implication so far is there isn't really any more to be said since Sciabarra, so what are you so hot about--a little fun on my part?

All Ayn Rand needs today are intellectual defenders. How you and Valliant ever thought his crappy book was going to help Ayn Rand's image is completely beyond me. The rape victim--except she didn't seem to suffer much consequently, according to Valliant.

--Brant

likes the Brandens

(Edited by Brant Gaede on 9/08, 5:15pm)


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Thursday, September 8, 2005 - 5:09pmSanction this postReply
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Brant, this is that issue. It's the same issue. It won't go away with Sciabarra's or anyone else's review of Valliant's book. It will continue to be boilerplate in mainstream publications like Commentary because of the Brandens' books, no matter how much you like them and have enjoyed your experiences with them, of which I have no reason to doubt. I'm hot for two reasons: 1) Rand does not deserve this and I'm tired of seeing falsehoods trotted out to change the subject from her ideas, even in a magazine like Commentary, even on the occasion of her centenary; and 2) I had heard this snide insinuation that the author snipped this and that to make for a more favorable image of Rand once too many times to stay out of it. I didn't bring up Valliant's book. Laure did. Because it's the same issue. Because this is the albatross the Brandens have bequeathed us, and that albatross is stinking to high heaven in my nostrils.

Anyway, we share much in our appreciation of Rand, so rock on.

Casey


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Thursday, September 8, 2005 - 5:23pmSanction this postReply
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(Casey's previous post was published before I edited in the last paragraph in my previous post.)

If you were older Casey, you would have read and heard much, much worse about Ayn Rand than that crap in Commentary.
The late 1950s and the 1960s were Ayn Rand sticking a stick into the liberals' beehive times. And you should have seen what they did to Barry Goldwater. At least then the admirers of Ayn Rand weren't fighting each other.

--Brant

(Edited by Brant Gaede on 9/08, 5:25pm)


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Post 18

Thursday, September 8, 2005 - 5:46pmSanction this postReply
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Brant, I already know that "crappy" book has made a big difference for the better. And people can read that "crappy" book and write to Commentary with chapter and verse citing where their article is false. No matter how old I am, I feel like Methuselah every time I see the oh-I'm-so-weary-of-all-the-division argument trotted out. It only arrives in time to stop Rand's side of the story from being heard, of course. And half of that "crappy" book IS Rand's side of the story. And it is devastating to the Brandens, and that is having a very real effect on Rand scholarship, from this point forward. As one scholar has put in private correspondence to Mr. Valliant, "it has changed the landscape." It has already resulted in the migration of certain scholars, as well.

When I hear people talk about Rand's beehive prodding in her needlessly incendiary rhetoric I'm reminded of Noam Chomsky's argument about American aggression around the globe. He revises history by removing the activities of the enemy from the equation and then pointing at America's aggressive actions in isolation, as though they were unprovoked, as though there wasn't a cold war going on. Ayn Rand was one person. She had an entire establishment against her. She was hit like Borimir from all directions in a constant barrage of calumny at all times. Remove the orcs from the frame and Borimir looks like a wild man lashing out at nothing. I think it is wise to remember that Rand had to be a veritable Jackie Chan to fight off all the blows thrown at her during her lifetime. I'm PROUD to have had a part in letting her respond to the blows that landed so devastatingly after she was dead.


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Thursday, September 8, 2005 - 5:49pmSanction this postReply
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Casey asks:

How stupid do you think the author (who had absolute freedom to publish them in their entirety from ARI) would have to be to try to get away with distorting the record in his book only to have the raw evidence come out and discredit his work forever?

 

A better question might be: How stupid does Valliant think his readers would have to be to accept his tortuous, obfuscating interpretations of Ayn Rand’s journal entries without analyzing her words independently? 

 

If you read Rand’s journal entries without Valliant’s verbal camouflage, you can clearly see an extremely jealous woman engaging in endless rationalization, clinging desperately to every last shred of hope of resuming the love affair—right up until the day she discovers his “infidelity,” slaps Branden across the face and declares her wish that he remain impotent for the rest of his life.  Now there’s unimpeachable rationality for you.

 

Of course, as you well know, there’s another thread where all of this was analyzed ad nauseum.  Just because it is no longer on page one of the Solo Forum, does not mean you can get now away with pretending that Valliant and his vicious, disgusting book have not already been thoroughly discredited.





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