James Valliant on "The Exploiters and the Exploited," Part 1

In chapter four of The Passion of Ayn Rand’s Critics (entitled “The Exploiters and the Exploited”) James Valliant takes issue with what he alleges is the financial, intellectual and personal exploitation of Ayn Rand by Nathaniel and Barbara Branden which culminated in the 1968 break. Both Brandens concede that they deceived Rand about Nathaniel’s personal life but deny any financial or intellectual exploitation of her.

As is well known, Rand publicly denounced the Brandens in “To Whom It May Concern.” The Brandens, in separate responses, replied to Rand. (Rand then said nothing further on the subject.) This at least gives readers the ability to make a certain “common sense” evaluation of the charges, although it is ultimately difficult to come to firm conclusions without having access to primary source material and interviews. Valliant, who had complete access to the Ayn Rand Archives, is of little help here. He doesn’t supplement his critique of the Brandens’ books with any previously unreleased interviews. He does mention in the endnotes that he has reviewed certain letters and documents in the Archives (such as the business plan Barbara Branden drew up in 1968 for a new lecture service) but doesn’t reproduce them or discuss their contents.

The Play’s Not the Thing

Rand begins her critique of Nathaniel Branden’s supposed change in “intellectual attitude” by referring to his production of Barbara Branden’s stage version of The Fountainhead which, according to Rand, “seemed to become his central concern.” Needless to say, I have no way of verifying whether Branden’s involvement with this project took too much of his time, much less whether it was “authority-flaunting, unserious and, at times, undignified.” Valliant presents no evidence that Rand’s allegations are accurate. I am unaware of such a claim being made in the diaries reproduced in PARC, although the play is mentioned a few of times by Rand. (PARC, pp. 306, 308 & 334.)

Rand then mentions two additional “defaults” with respect to Branden’s responsibilities concerning Objectivism. First, “the growing and lengthening delays in the writing of his articles” for The Objectivist and, second, his failure to rewrite the “Basic Principles of Objectivism” course. These are, to a certain extent, subject to confirmation.

With respect to articles for The Objectivist, Rand says “[w]e also agreed that we would write an equal number of articles and receive an equal salary.” She adds:

If you check over the back issues of this publication, you will observe that in 1962 and 1963 Mr. Branden and I wrote about the same number of articles and that the carried his proper share of the burden of my work. But beginning with the year 1964, the number of articles written by me became significantly greater than the number written by him. On many occasions, he was unable to deliver a promised article on time and I had to write one in order to save the magazine from constant delays. This year, I refused to write more than my share; hence the magazine is now four months behind schedule. (I shall now make up for this time lag as fast as possible.)

Valliant made no effort to determine whether Rand’s claim on this is true. Fred Seddon did. His findings (which I have not attempted to verify) are as follows:

So let’s check over the back issues. Here is what I found. (A “+” indicates Rand is ahead of Nathaniel Branden's output; a “-“ that she is behind. Here are the results up to the break in May of 1968:

1962 +7
1963 -3
1964 +2
1965 +4
1966 +4
1967 +1
1968 even

Notice she is wrong about 1962 and 1963. They did not write “about the same number of articles.” In 1962 she wrote seven more than Branden, the greatest imbalance of any year, despite her complaint about 1964 on. In 1963 Branden actually wrote more articles than Rand—the only year that happened. Notice also that in all of 1967 and 1968, Rand only wrote one more article than Branden. Hardly enough to justify her fuss, especially considering the huge difference in 1962 of which she does not make mention.

As far as Branden’s alleged failure to update his “Basic Principles” course, I am not in a position to verify this. Valliant appears to believe that Branden is in error:

Even in the “updated” version which he sold on LP following the break, a substantial portion of the material appears to be (almost verbatim) what can be found in The Virtue of Selfishness and Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal. Branden’s “continuous updates” consist primarily of added quotations from Rand’s newly available, IOE, which are also contained on these LPs. Otherwise, despite Branden’s claims to the contrary, his lecture material changed very little throughout the Sixties. (PARC, p. 120.)

Valliant sneers at Branden’s contention that he planned a full update by 1969, but this is possible. It is likewise possible that Branden, after breaking with Rand, was not particularly interested in doing a substantial rewrite. I do find plausible Branden’s claim that of greater concern was his book on psychology, which was published in 1969. Branden’s version of events, all things considered, is at least as likely as Rand’s, if not more likely.

James Valliant On The Exploiters And The Exploited

In chapter four of The Passion of Ayn Rand’s Critics, James Valliant takes issue with what he alleges is the financial, intellectual and personal exploitation of Ayn Rand by Nathaniel and Barbara Branden which culminated in the 1968 break. Both Brandens concede that they deceived Rand about Nathaniel’s personal life but deny any financial or intellectual exploitation of her.

As is well known, Rand publicly denounced the Brandens in “To Whom It May Concern.” The Brandens, in separate responses, replied to Rand. (Rand then said nothing further on the subject.) This at least gives readers the ability to make a certain “common sense” evaluation of the charges, although it is ultimately difficult to come to firm conclusions without having access to primary source material and interviews. Valliant, who he had complete access to the Ayn Rand Archives, is of little help here. He doesn’t supplement his critique of the Brandens’ books with any previously unreleased interviews. He does mention in the endnotes that he has reviewed certain letters and documents in the Archives (such as the business plan Barbara Branden drew up in 1968 for a new lecture service) but doesn’t reproduce them or discuss their contents.


The September 1968 Business Plan
After it was agreed that NBI would close, Barbara Branden presented Rand with a ten-page business plan for the creation of a new lecture service. The lecture service would take over NBI’s lease and The Objectivist would remain a subtenant. Branden presented this plan to Rand, which she rejected. Rand stated:

Then I considered the idea of endorsing Mrs. Branden’s proposal to run a lecture organization of her own, on a much more modest scale, with the assistance of NBI’s associate lecturers. But after a few inquiries, I concluded that this was impracticable: I discovered that NBI had treated its associate lecturers so unfairly that they were not eager to continue. (For instance, when the yearly grosses of NBI grew larger, the percentages paid to its associate lecturers were cut.)

* * *

On September 2, the plan was submitted to me at a business meeting attended by my attorney, Henry Mark Holzer. The plan did not offer any relevant factual material, but a projection (by an unspecified method) of future profits to be earned by a lecture organization patterned after NBI, with Mrs. Branden giving the “Basic” course. The essence of the plan required that THE OBJECTIVIST remain in the same quarters with Mrs. Branden’s new corporation, under a business arrangement of so questionable a nature that I reject it at once . . . .

In both her 1968 response and in PAR, Branden takes issue with Rand’s claims. Her response contains numerous points not addressed by Valliant which, if true, undercut Rand’s version of events. Branden claims that Henry Mark Holzer had in fact approved of the business plan. She alleges that the plan was accompanied by forty seven pages of analysis. If true, Rand’s claim that the plan did not contain “any relevant factual material” is likely false.

In any event, Rand’s claim of financial exploitation of the lectures appears unfounded. Rand asserts that lecturers were treated unfairly, using as an example the fact that percentages paid to NBI lecturer’s declined as NBI’s grosses increased. Why this should be surprising or unfair is beyond me. A decrease in percentage paid to lecturers doesn’t necessarily correspond to a decrease in payments. Here is Branden’s response:

Miss Rand states that when the yearly grosses of NBI grew larger, the percentages paid to its Associate Lecturers were cut. This is quite true. But she neglects to mention that when the percentages were cut, the minimum rate guaranteed to a lecturer for a course was more than doubled. (And surely the author of Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal knows that the operations of a business preclude transactions which are not considered, by both buyer and seller, to be to their mutual advantage.)
I might add that, a few years ago, while lecturing for NBI during the summer months, Leonard Peikoff asked me if he might tell the head of his philosophy department the sum of money he was earning for his summer's work; he explained that the amount was so much more than a university professor makes, that his department head would be profoundly impressed with the "practicality" of Objectivism. I agreed.

Valliant repeats Rand’s claim that Branden’s proposal was only a “projection” and adds “without the draw of NBI’s ‘star’ lecturer, Nathaniel Branden, which as she says were based on NBI’s past performance, were of little value.” (PARC, p. 120.) Perhaps the report did mention the possibility of an initial fall-off in revenue. (Valliant’s comment about Nathaniel Branden is interesting given his attempt to downplay his contribution to Objectivism in the book.) Rand said that her name was a “gold mine” and it is certainly possible that a revised lecture service could have been equally profitable.

Valliant, who had complete access to the Ayn Rand Archives, was in a position to shed some light on these questions. He mentions that a copy of Branden’s business plan was likely found in the Archives, yet doesn’t reproduce it or discuss its contents. (PARC, p. 404.)

James Valliant On Naming Names

James Valliant first brought to the larger attention of the Objectivist world Allan Gotthelf’s finding that Ayn Rand’s name could not have originated from a Remington Rand typewriter because typewriters with name “Rand” were not produced until several years after Rand’s first use of her name.

I think that Valliant makes too much of this mistake by Barbara Branden. In any event, Valliant also raises suspicions about Rand’s first name and her father’s name in Branden’s biography:

. . . it is interesting to observe that Ms. Branden uniformly names Rand’s father “Fronz” while all other sources and scholars are in agreement that his name was “Zinovy.” Ms. Branden does not reveal her source for this naming. Perhaps Ms. Branden is attempting to draw more dubious “patterns” between Rand’s father and her husband, Frank O’Connor (whose given name was “Francis”) . . . . Ms. Branden translates Rand’s Russian name as “Alice,” while scholars as diverse as Sciabarra and Binswanger normally render it “Alyssa” or “Alisa” . . . . at least “Alice” is how her name appeared on her 1926 passport. (PARC, pp. 389-90.)

Valliant’s suspicions are misplaced. Concerning Rand’s father’s name, Branden reports that Rand called him “Fronz” in her taped interviews. In addition, Adam Reed pointed out:

In footnote 10 on page 389, you speculate on Barbara Branden's motives for giving Ayn Rand's father's first name as 'Fronz,' 'while all other sources and scholars are in agreement that his name was 'Zinovy.' You speculate, 'Perhaps Ms. Branden is attempting to draw more dubious "patterns" between Rand's father and her husband, Frank O'Connor.' But it so happens that my parents were born in ethnically Jewish families in the Russian Empire in 1909 - and they and my other relatives had different native-sounding first names in different languages. For example, my father was Tsvi in Hebrew, Hersh in Yiddish, Genrik in Russian and so on. It was the Yiddish name that was used in everyday life within the family, even though they talked to each other much more often in Polish (or German or Russian) than in Yiddish. So it would not have been unusual if Ayn's father were named Franz/Fronz in German/Yiddish and Zinovy in Russian; Zinovy would have been on official documents examined by scholars and Fronz would have been Alyssa's father's name in childhood memories recounted by Ayn Rand to Barbara Branden.

Reed also discovered that:

The archives of the Jewish community of Saint Petersburg mention the couple Fronz Zakharovich Rosenbaum and Anna Borisovna Rosenbaum (see http://kobieta.gazeta.pl/wysokie-obcasy/1,53662,2806632.html (in Polish) - presumably Alyssa Rosenbaum's parents.

Concerning “Alice,” Branden also reports that Rand said that this is what her family and friends called her in Russia. It should be remembered that Branden did not have access to Russian archives or Rand's letters to her family when writing her biography.

Two Articles By Larry Sechrest

Two articles by Larry Sechrest from The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies are available here and here.

The Passion of James Valliant's Criticism, Part IV

Part four of my critique of James Valliant's book is up.

Ayn Rand and Charity, Part 2

Following up my previous discussion, I will survey some additional Rand comments on charity here.

Rand’s 1964 Playboy Interview

“My views on charity are very simple. I do not consider it a major virtue and, above all, I do not consider it a moral duty. There is nothing wrong in helping other people, if and when they are worthy of the help and you can afford to help them. I regard charity as a marginal issue. What I am fighting is the idea that charity is a moral duty and a primary virtue.”

Of note is Rand’s statement that “[t]here is nothing wrong in helping other people, if and when they are worthy of help . . . . “ This leads to the question of how much I need to know about people in order to justify helping them. Contributing money to, say, an organization that helps poor people in India might turn on the moral status of the people receiving the help. Some of them might be moral, others not.

Allowing Poor People to Ride on Trains for Free

In one of Rand’s essays she contrasts a railroad’s allowing poor people to ride on a train in empty seats with a full blown altruist. This example approaches what I’ve called generic charity.

For some reason, I’m having a hard time finding the essay.

The Fountainhead: Austin Heller

Austin Heller is a positive minor figure in The Fountainhead. Rand says “he never donated to charity, but spent more money than he could afford, on defending political prisoners anywhere.” (P. 107.)

While this shouldn’t necessarily be taken as describing Rand’s views, it supports the idea that Rand did not support “generic charity,” but thought charity should be limited to specific kinds of people or causes.

I owe this reference to Roderick Long.

Ayn Rand and Charity, Part I

It is occasionally said that Ayn Rand supported charity. By this, one would normally understand (among other things) giving aid to strangers and also various organizations devoted to the care of the sick, the poor, and the needy. For example, giving money to hurricane victims, starving people in far away countries, as well as working for a local soup kitchen are generally considered charitable concerns. I'll call this type of charity (where you don't know much about the moral worth or specific circumstances of the people being helped) "generic charity."

I’m not so sure that Rand would have supported most of what we understand by charity, and in this series of posts I plan on discussing some of the major texts in the Randian corpus.

Rand’s principal work in this area is “The Ethics of Emergencies,” which is reprinted in The Virtue of Selfishness. She discusses a number of scenarios.

1. Helping Those You Love

There is an obligation to help those one loves. Further, such acts are not altruistic and therefore don’t pose a problem for Rand.

2. Helping Strangers: Emergency Situations

Here Rand appears to believe that there is a moral obligation to help people in emergency situations if one can do it without much risk.

"It is only in emergency situations that one should volunteer to help strangers, if it is in one’s power. For example, a man who values human life and is caught in a shipwreck should help those to save his fellow passengers (though not at the expense of his own life)." [VOS, pp. 54-55.]

By “should,” I take Rand to mean morally obligated. If so, then it would appear that the ban on altruism is lifted. Of course, one could read it as something not quite as strong – “it is a very nice thing to do.”

3. Helping Strangers: Semi-Emergency Situations

Following this, Rand gives a somewhat different example:

“Or to take an example that can occur in everyday life: suppose on hears that the man next door is ill and penniless. Illness and poverty are not metaphysical emergencies, they are part of the normal risks of existence; but since the man is temporarily helpless, one may bring him food and medicine, if one can afford it (as an act of good will, not of duty) or one may raise a fund among the neighbors to help him out. But this does not mean that one must support him from then on, nor that one must spend one’s life looking for starving men to help.” [P. 55.]

This is an emergency situation, but not as sudden and unexpected as the one above. She says one “may” help in such situations.

Most people would call this charity. Yet, what about giving to an organization devoted to helping similar people who are “down on their luck”? I don’t think Rand would approve of this, although it’s not clear. She does say:

“Poverty, ignorance, illness and other problems of that kind are not metaphysical emergencies. By the metaphysical nature of man and of existence, man has to maintain his life by his won effort . . . . One’s sole obligation toward others, in this respect, is to maintain a social system that leaves men free to achieve, to gain and to keep their values.” [Id.]

If country X has a social system that is not conducive to economic growth and thus most of the people were poor, I don’t think Rand would endorse contributing money to a charitable agency devoted to helping its citizens.

James Valliant on the O'Connors' Marriage

In The Passion of Ayn Rand’s Critics, James Valliant claims that “[i]f we are to take the Brandens’ word for it, the O’Connors’ marriage was an empty fraud. For Rand, it was maintained by her fantasy-like projection of O’Connor. For O’Connor, this supposed financial dependence serves to explain what is otherwise inexplicable to the Brandens—O’Connor’s staying by Rand’s side.” [PARC, p. 152.]

On SoloPassion on July 10, 2008, Valliant said that Barbara Branden describes the O’Connors’ marriage as “something of a fraud . . . .”

As Ms. Branden describes it, Mr. Scherk, the O'Connor marriage was something of a fraud from the start -- built as it was on Rand's fantasy-like projection of a hero who embodied her distinctive values, not the reality of O'Connor, if we are to believe her. By the 1940s, it is suggested that the fraud was wearing thin -- Rand was allegedly becoming frustrated with a lack of intellectual communication. Of course, there is evidence which contradicts this portrait of a troubled marriage in the 1940s or a lack of intellectual communication -- as PARC notes. In any case, when did Ms. Branden ever say that the marriage become honest or solid thereafter? She implies that the friction had settled -- but does she ever suggest that the O'Connor marriage "got real"? (As PARC also makes quite clear, the nature of the relationship between the O'Connors carried a element of mystery for the Brandens -- note the title of the chapter.)

Contrary to Valliant, neither of the Brandens describes Rand’s marriage as a “fraud” or anything like it. It is true that the Brandens contend that Rand projected certain qualities on O’Connor that he didn’t possess (and they seem accurate in this conclusion). But this is a far cry from claiming that their marriage was “built . . . on” (much less sustained for fifty years by) Rand’s projection. Both mention the sincere love and affection that existed between the two. Like most marriages, the O’Connors’ marriage had its up and downs. Rand probably wouldn’t have embarked on the affair with Branden if she was completely satisfied with Frank as a husband.

The Brandens’ claim that Rand became “frustrated with a lack of intellectual communication” in the 1940s to such an extent that Rand considered divorce is highly believable. (And see William Scherk’s excerpt from the Brandens in which he highlights Valliant’s selective quotations.) Contrary to Valliant, there is no evidence that undercuts this. Valliant does not cite a single report of any “intellectual communication” between Rand and O’Connor. Even Valliant concedes, "[w]hether they were always truly happy together, especially in light of Rand's affair, can be questioned . . . ." [PARC, p. 157.] It is not hard to believe that in such an unusual marriage one or both of the parties would consider divorce.

Turning to Valliant’s recent claim that Barbara Branden never describes the O’Connor’s marriage as “becom[ing] honest or solid thereafter [e.g., after the 1940s],” this begs the question of whether Valliant’s description of PAR is correct. In any event, it is rather incredible that Valliant missed this moving description of their marriage post-1968:

Ayn had turned once more to Frank, seeking the special comfort that he alone could give her. He was the one man who had never betrayed her, who had always stood by her, who was her ally and her support through all the triumphs and traumas of her life. It appears that now, at last, she began to truly love the man she had married—or perhaps, to accept the fact that she always had loved him, loved him as he was and as he had been . . . . Without the words to name it, he [Frank] had always accepted and revered her as no one else had ever done, and the personal rejections of a lifetime made his understanding and acceptance more valuable to her than they had ever been before. She clung to him, hating to have him out of her sight . . . . [I]t was the relationship that was the most purely emotional of her life which gave her, in the end, the most satisfaction. [PAR, pp. 364-65.]

As to Valliant’s final contention that “[f]or O’Connor, this supposed financial dependence serves to explain what is otherwise inexplicable to the Brandens—O’Connor’s staying by Rand’s side . . . .,” this is another misrepresentation.

First, only Barbara Branden mentions the possible financial reason Frank had for remaining with Rand. As is typical, Valliant has attributed something to both Brandens which is stated only by one.

Second, Barbara Branden does not say that financial concerns were the reason why O’Connor stayed with Rand for fifty years. Branden says that Frank once told her that he wanted to leave Rand, "'But where would I go? . . . What would I do? . . .'" [PAR, p. 262.] Branden interprets this as, in part at least, a concern for how Frank would support himself after a divorce. [Id.] She does not claim that this was the determining factor in Frank’s remaining with Rand for the entire length of the marriage.

Third, while the Brandens do find a certain “mystery” in Rand’s and O’Connor’s love for each other, it is a stretch to say that they found Frank’s staying with Rand for fifty years “inexplicable.” (See the above quote from Barbara Branden.)

Is Orthodox Objectivism a Religion?

The claim that Objectivism is a religion goes back to Albert Ellis’s 1968 book Is Objectivism a Religion? Calling Objectivism a religion seems upon first glance quite odd, given its atheism and anti-supernaturalism. At the same time, many critics of Objectivism have noted quite a few “ominous parallels” between Rand’s writings and religion, and between the Objectivist movement and established religious bodies. I’ll review a few here, more in this spirit of provoking conversation than in coming to any definite conclusions. (My reference to Objectivism is limited to those Objectivists associated with Leonard Peikoff’s Ayn Rand Institute.)

1. Rand saw herself as something of a secular prophet. In the first edition of Anthem, published in 1936, she wrote, “I have broken the tables of my brothers, and my own tables do I now write with my own spirit.” Rand’s writing is frequently apocalyptic as well. She begins John Galt’s sermon in Atlas Shrugged with an Old Testament-like rebuke of a sinful world facing judgment. “I am the man who loves his life. I am the man who does not sacrifice his love or his values. I am the man who has deprived you of victims and thus has destroyed your world, and if you wish to know why you are perishing—you who dread knowledge—I am the one who will now tell you . . . .”

2. Orthodox Objectivism has its official canon of scripture. As Harry Binswanger says to those who consider joining his email list:

"It is understood that Objectivism is limited to the philosophic principles expounded by Ayn Rand in the writings published during her lifetime plus those articles by other authors that she published in her own periodicals (e.g., The Objectivist) or included in her anthologies."Pride of place goes to Atlas Shrugged, which Rand had the unfortunate tendency of quoting as if it were the Bible. Like a pastor using characters from the Bible, Rand and her followers constantly refer to characters in Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead to draw moral lessons.

3. Like religions, Orthodox Objectivism has the tendency to turn disagreements about doctrine into moral issues. For example, Leonard Peikoff once said to Rand,

"You are suffering the fate of a genius trapped in a rotten culture," I would begin. 'My distinctive attribute," she would retort, "is not genius, but intellectual honesty." "That is part of it," I would concede, "but after all I am intellectually honest, too, and it doesn't make me the kind of epochal mind who can write Atlas Shrugged or discover Objectivism." "One can't look at oneself that way," she would answer me. "No one can say: 'Ah me! the genius of the ages.' My perspective as a creator has to be not 'How great I am' but 'How true this idea is and how clear, if only men were honest enough to face the truth.'" So, for understandable reasons, we reached an impasse. She kept hoping to meet an equal; I knew that she never would. For once, I felt, I had the broad historical perspective, the perspective on her, that in the nature of the case she could not have. (Peikoff, "My Thirty Years with Ayn Rand: An Intellectual Memoir," The Objectivist Forum, 1987, pg. 12-13.)

4. As can be seen from the above quote, adulation of the group’s founder is paramount in Orthodox Objectivist circles. In particular, Rand’s sacred name is given great reverence by her followers. Rarely is she referred to as just “Rand.” She may be called “Ayn Rand,” “Miss Rand,” or “AR.” Leonard Peikoff is now commonly called “Leonard Peikoff” and “LP.”

5. Also, like many religious people, Orthodox Objectivists abhor the “backslider,” the person who appears to give assent to the truth but is working behind the scenes to circumvent it. Leonard Peikoff mentions the type of people Rand attracted in the above article:

"They absorbed the surface features of Ayn Rand's intellectual style and viewpoint as though by osmosis and then mimicked them. Often, because she was so open, they knew what she wanted them to say and they said it convincingly. Though uninterested in philosophy and even contemptuous of fundamentals, they could put on an expert act to the contrary, most often an act for themselves first of all. Ayn Rand was not the only person to be taken in by it. I knew most of these people well and, to be fair here, I must admit that I was even more deluded about them than she was."

6. Orthodox Objectivism has its official villains and heretics of the type described by Peikoff. The two most evil figures in this pantheon are, of course, Nathaniel and Barbara Branden. There are lesser fallen angels, such as David Kelley.

7. Orthodox Objectivism has its official church, the Ayn Rand Institute, which proselytizes on behalf of Objectivism. Leonard Peikoff and his small college of cardinals (Harry Binswanger and Peter Schwartz) supervise the movement. Peikoff occasionally speaks ex cathedra, as he did at the time of the Kelley break.

"Now I wish to make a request to any unadmitted anti-Objectivists reading this piece, a request that I make as Ayn Rand's intellectual and legal heir. If you reject the concept of "objectivity" and the necessity of moral judgment, if you sunder fact and value, mind and body, concepts and percepts, if you agree with the Branden or Kelley viewpoint or anything resembling it — please drop out of our movement: drop Ayn Rand, leave Objectivism alone."

Unlike many religions, however, Objectivists are intent on charging high prices for their material, which would seem to run counter to their movement’s aim. Objectivist retreats, called "Objectivist Conferences,” are quite expensive to attend.

8. Those who are associated with the ARI must take care that they do not demonstrate their “worldliness” by fraternizing with Kelleyites and other deviationists. No member of the Objectivist movement may associate with Kelley’s Atlas Center, for example. While an Objectivist might be permitted to publish in a mainstream philosophical journal (notwithstanding the fact that such journals routinely publish articles devoted to the destruction of man’s mind), no Objectivist may publish in Chris Sciabarra’s Journal of Ayn Rand Studies. No word yet on whether the lapsed may be restored to a state of grace.

9. It is unclear whether Orthodox Objectivism will develop an iconography of its departed saints, but at least one Objectivist artist has done so.

Ayn Rand And The World She Made

Anne Heller's biography of Ayn Rand (Ayn Rand and the World She Made) is scheduled to be released on February 17, 2009.



















I know very little about this book, but I did enjoy listening to Miss Heller's lecture at the 50th anniversary of Atlas Shrugged last year. I suspect that the page count (368 pages) is off by quite a bit.

Charlie Chan's Witticisms

This website collects all of Charlie Chan's aphorisms and witticisms.

Some of them are quite clever:

Bad alibi like dead fish - cannot stand test of time. (Charlie Chan in Panama)

Boy Scout knife, like ladies' hairpin, have many uses. (Charlie Chan's Secret)

I have it on good authority that none of Chan's aphorisms attributed to Confucius are correct.

Thinking About War by George Smith

This is an important essay by George Smith that discusses a recent Objectivist critique of just war theory.

Is The Passion of Ayn Rand "Valueless"?

James Valliant says in The Passion of Ayn Rand's Critics that the Brandens' books are "valueless" to historians. Here is a list of allegations that were first made in PAR that have since been confirmed. Of course, not all are earth-shattering and Peikoff and the Sures have disputed Branden's description of Rand's anger, but I think all this is worth pondering.

1. Nathaniel Branden had an affair with Ayn Rand. Although Peikoff at first questioned this, even he now admits it.

2. Nathaniel Branden and Rand obtained the consent of their spouses before starting the affair. Confirmed by Britting in Ayn Rand.

3. Nathaniel Branden and Rand first became lovey-dovey during a ride to Toronto. Rand mentions this ride in her diaries as excerpted in PARC.

4. Barbara Branden met Rand in 1981. Confirmed by the Archives, although Valliant initially implied this was a lie.

5. The Collective threw the surprise party for Rand to celebrate Atlas Shrugged. Confirmed by the Sures in Facets of Ayn Rand.

6. Rand used diet pills. Confirmed by a letter sent by Isabel Paterson to Rand quoted in Cox, The Woman and the Dynamo.

7. Rand had anger management issues. Confirmed by Leonard Peikoff in “My Thirty Years with Ayn Rand.”

8. Rand occasionally became angry in response to questions. Confirmed by the Sures.

9. Rand’s habit of expressing public disapproval for things she didn’t like. Confirmed by the Sures.

10. Rand’s typing kept her Chicago relatives up at night. Confirmed by Britting.

11. Rand didn’t like surprise parties. Confirmed by the Sures.

12. Detailed recollections of Dr. and Mrs. Blumenthal concerning Rand as quoted in PAR. Not disputed by Valliant.

13. Rand’s disappointment with her sister Nora during visit to US in 70s. Confirmed by Britting.

14. Cult-like nature of the Objectivist movement in the 60s. Confirmed by Valliant (although places the blame on Nathaniel Branden).

The Passion of James Valliant's Criticism, Part III

Part three of my critique of Jim Valliant's The Passion of Ayn Rand's Critics is now up.

Ayn Rand's Originality, Parts 3 and 4

Part 3 (Metaphysics and Part 4 (Epistemology) are up.

The Biological Teleology Of Ayn Rand's Ethics

An interesting discussion by Prof. Larry Arnhart.

Barbara Branden's Meeting With Ayn Rand In 1981

In The Passion of Ayn Rand, Barbara Branden says that she met Rand in 1981 and wrote Rand a letter thereafter. (PAR, pp. 397-400.)

In The Passion of Ayn Rand’s Critics, James Valliant says that Rand never saw Barbara Branden again after their split. (PARC, p. 94.)

I contacted the Archives of the ARI and they confirm that there is evidence that this meeting took place. Specifically, although the letter mentioned by Barbara Branden was not found, Cynthia Peikoff (who was Rand’s secretary in 1981), mentions the letter and the meeting in the forthcoming 100 Voices: An Oral History of Ayn Rand, by Scott McConnell.

Reference assistance, courtesy the Ayn Rand Archives, A Special Collection of the Ayn Rand Institute.

I thank the Archives for their response.

Ayn Rand's Originality

The first two parts of my series are up at ACHRN Blog here and here.

PARC: Two More Points

1. The Surprise Party From Hell

In PARC, James Valliant says that the surprise party to celebrate the publication of Atlas Shrugged was thrown by Random House (the novel's publisher). I pointed out that this contradicts the Brandens' accounts, which say the Collective threw the party. When I wrote my critique of PARC, I did not have the Sures recollections of Rand published in 2001 as Facets of Ayn Rand. The ARI has now made the book available on the web. The Sures confirm that the Collective threw the party.

This is a minor mistake on Valliant's part, but it should be remembered that he claims that no one has found any mistakes in his book. (Valliant did cite Facets for Rand's view of surprise parties.)

When I confronted Valliant on this mistake in 2007, he claimed he based his account on "various sources." Maybe Mr. Valliant should be a bit more skeptical of his (alleged) sources.

2. Alan Greenspan

In my most recent post on PARC, I pointed out that Passion of Ayn Rand has a favorable blurb from Alan Greenspan on the back. Greenspan sided with Rand after the Split and knew Rand well until she died. I said that Greenspan had "vouched" for the book. I was taken to task by Valliant and his supporters. After all, Greenspan said only that the book was a "fascinating insight" into Rand's life.

Apparently, Official Objectivists Diana Hsieh and Gus Van Horn aren't too happy with Greenspan's "endorsement" of PAR. According to Mr. Van Horn:

Diana Hsieh notes of Greenspan that, "He endorsed Barbara Branden's smear of a biography with a laudatory quote printed on the back cover. (You can see it for yourself on Amazon.)" So much for Greenspan remaining loyal to Ayn Rand on a personal or philosophical level.

Objectiblog Mascot: Smokey the Cat

Smokey is the author of books such as Smokey: The Unknown Ideal and The Virtue of Smokey.

Rand's Style of Argument 3: Religion

[Cross-Posted at Ayn Rand Contra Human Nature]

Ayn Rand was one of the best known atheists of the twentieth century. Unlike many non-believers who find much to commend about religion, Rand’s evaluation was almost entirely negative. In this respect she was ahead of her time and has more in common with today’s “new atheists” such as Daniel Dennett and Richard Dawkins.

Rand’s shortcomings as a philosopher are magnified when it comes to the philosophy of religion. Unlike her writings on ethics and epistemology (where she showed at least a moderate acquaintance with its subject matter and familiarity with some representative thinkers), it doesn’t appear that Rand had even a superficial knowledge of religion or even a passing familiarity with thinkers such as Augustine, Luther and Calvin. The one religious thinker she admired, Thomas Aquinas, is never quoted. Her interest appears more in critiquing its ethical teachings and psychological implications than in the arguments theologians put forward for its metaphysics and epistemology. Even here, her interest was quite narrow, being generally limited to contemporary and medieval Catholicism. She devoted two essays to recent papal encyclicals. In "Of Living Death," she critiques Paul VI's encyclical Humanae Vitae (which opposed artificial contraception) and in "Requiem for Man" she critiques his Populorum Progressio (a discussion of economics). When she discusses religious ethics, she seems to think they are universally synonymous with the worst excesses of medieval asceticism.

Rand’s bugbear is what she called “mysticism,” and defined it as follows:

“What is mysticism? Mysticism is the acceptance of acceptance of allegations without evidence or proof, either apart from or against, the evidence of one's senses and one's reason. Mysticism is the claim to some non-sensory, non-rational, non-definable, non-identifiable means of knowledge, such as ‘instinct,’ ‘intuition,’ ‘revelation,’ or any form of ‘just knowing.’" (Rand, Philosophy: Who Needs It, pp. 62-63.)

Rand's definition of mysticism is non-traditional. Anglican theologian Alister McGrath defines mysticism as follows: "A multifaceted term, which can bear a variety of meanings. In its most important sense, the terms refer to the union with God which is seen as the ultimate goal of the Christian life. This union is not to be thought of in rational terms, but more in terms of a direct consciousness or experience of God." (McGrath, Christian Spirituality, p. 187.)

Not only does Rand utilize the term mysticism to describe all religions, but uses it to encompass theories that almost never fall within the common definition of religion. For example, she considers Marxism and racism to constitute forms of mysticism. Avowedly secular thinkers such as pragmatists and logical positivists are "neo-mystics." (Rand, Philosophy: Who Needs It, p. 64.) It might be hard to find a non-Objectivist system of thought that Rand did not consider mysticism or at least "neo-mysticism." Even Ludwig von Mises was a "neo-mystic" who engaged in "whim-worship." (Mayhew, Ayn Rand’s Marginalia, p. 147.) Rand is entitled to reject the arguments for religion or logical positivism, but she isn’t entitled to rule them out of court by a type of philosophical guilt by association.

As is often the case, the “pseudo-psychological trappings” (as Daniel Barnes of ACRHN's blog puts it) of Rand’s argument knows no limit. In “Galt Speaks” from Atlas Shrugged, she provides the following psychological diagnosis of mystics:

“A mystic is a man who surrendered his mind at its first encounter with the minds of others. Somewhere in the distant reaches of his childhood, when his own understanding of reality clashed with the assertions of others, with their arbitrary orders and contradictory demands, he gave in to so craven a fear that he renounced his rational faculty. . . . From then on, afraid to think, he is left at the mercy of unidentified feelings. His feelings become his only guide, his only remnant of personal identity, he clings to them with ferocious possessiveness-and whatever thinking he does is devoted to the struggle of hiding from himself that the nature of his feelings is terror.” (Rand, For the New Intellectual, pp. 160-61.)

Nowhere in Rand’s corpus do we find any attempt to support this diagnosis with evidence. I doubt that Thomas Aquinas, Ludwig von Mises and Karl Marx experienced such a psychological crisis point in their childhood, but as can be seen from Rand’s diaries published in James Valliant’s The Passion of Ayn Rand’s Critics, Rand put great stock in her psychoanalytic abilities.

In fact, Rand’s own psychological needs appear to be the driving force for her embrace of atheism. According to her one-time associate Barbara Branden, Rand became an atheist at age thirteen. Branden records Rand writing in her diary at that age: "Today I decided to be an atheist." Branden reports her as later explaining, "I had decided that the concept of God is degrading to men. Since they say that God is perfect, man can never be that perfect, then man is low and imperfect and there is something above him – which is wrong." (Branden, The Passion of Ayn Rand, p. 35.)

Of the various arguments against God’s existence, this is particularly weak. My feelings about a thing’s existence generally don’t have much to do with its actual existence. I could just as well argue that geniuses don’t exist because that posits someone who is above me. Interestingly, Rand once said that a person could raise his IQ from 110 (moderately above average) to 150 (borderline genius). (Mayhew, Ayn Rand Answers, p. 179.)

When Rand actually gets around to critiquing the metaphysics and epistemology of religion, her results aren’t impressive and more often than not rest on poorly thought out arguments and misunderstandings. For example, in Atlas Shrugged, she claims that theism is contradictory: “God is that which no human mind can know, they say—and proceed to demand that you consider it knowledge.” (Rand, For the New Intellectual, p. 149.) Rand’s description may describe Gnostics and some types of mystics, but certainly doesn’t represent mainstream theists, most of whom believe that God may be known (albeit not exhaustively).

For those who are interested in Rand’s (and Leonard Peikoff’s) abilities as critics of theism, I recommend the essays by Stephen Parrish and Patrick Toner in the Spring 2007 Journal of Ayn Rand Studies.

Myths and Truths About Libertarianism

Murray Rothbard's essay Myths and Truths About Libtertarianim is available on-line. I tend to think that Rothbard's style of anarcho-libertarianism, while not utopian, assumes an amount of goodness in human nature that is unwarranted.

PARC: Four More Points

Since my two critiques of PARC, I've moved on to other projects, but here are a few things worth mentioning.

1. Frank's Drinking

One of the most notorious misrepresentations by James Valliant in PARC is his misquote of what Barbara Branden says Rand's housekeeper told her concerning liquor bottles in Frank O'Connor's studio.

Here is Barbara Branden (emphasis added):

He retained his studio in the apartment building where he and Ayn lived, and continued to spend his days there. And each week, when Ayn’s housekeeper went to the studio to clean it, she found no new paintings but, instead, rows of empty liquor bottles.

Here is Jim Valliant (emphasis added):

As her sole corroboration for these sources, Ms. Branden refers to the 'rows of empty liquor bottles' in O’Connor’s studio which Rand’s housekeeper is said to have found there after O’Connor’s death.

Now, finding empty liquor bottles "each week" and finding them "after O'Connor's death" are two different things.

Robert Campbell has pointed out that the source for Valliant's misreport is apparently Jeff Walker's The Ayn Rand Cult.

Barbara Branden relates that toward the end when people came into Rand's apartment, "the first thing they smelled was alcohol, and Frank had clearly been drinking," even in the morning. Now "Frank would fly into rages over nothing." After he died, his studio was found littered with empty liquor bottles. [TARC, p. 264.]

Walker does refer to an interview with Barbara Branden for the part in quotes, but nothing for the statement about the liquor bottles.

2. The Break With The Holzers

In PARC, Valliant speculates that the split might have something to do with Henry Holzer's views concerning constitutional interpretation. I came across this 1996 interview with Erika Holzer on her website.

FC: Did you show her any of your writing?

Holzer: Ayn had already seen samples of what I called my "practice pieces." These she went over with me in great detail, giving me invaluable literary feedback. But by the time I had completed my first novel Double Crossing some years later, she and I had become estranged.

FC: Over political or philosophical issues?

Holzer: Neither. It was a personal matter involving some friends of hers who'd known her a lot longer than we had. Even after this estrangement, she remained cordial to my husband and me whenever we'd see her at some public event, such as a lecture on Objectivism, even telling us that, unlike everyone else she had “excommunicated,” her “door was always open to us . . . ” [For various personal reasons, my husband and I chose not to re-enter that door.] It was too bad, really. When we were still friends, Ayn said to me on more than one occasion that I'd never have to endure from the liberal publishing establishment what she'd had to endure — all those endless doors being slammed in your face. That, given her clout, she would see that the right doors remained open to me. But that never happened. I did have to wage that enormous uphill battle she had promised to spare me. It went on for many years.

I have no idea which friends of Rand's Holzer is referring to, but: (1) she does describe their break with Rand as an "excommunication"; and (2) it didn't have anything to do with political or philosophical issues (for example animal rights or constitutional interpretation).

3. Speculation in PARC

James Valliant likes to claim that there this is too much speculation in the Brandens' books. I should have highlighted more the fact that Valliant is the king of speculation.

To take one example, Barbara Branden says that Frank told her that he wanted to leave Rand, "'But where would I go? . . . What would I do? . . .'" [PAR, p. 262.]

Here is Valliant:

The manifest absurdity of believing that a husband of a very successful author--whose crucial role in that author's own work had been publicly professed by Rand--would be left penniless from a divorce cannot be ascribed to O'Connor but to Ms. Branden. (Even in those days, husbands of high-income wives could--and did--get attractive settlements.) [PARC, pp. 151-52.]

Barbara Branden was an eyewitness and I see no reason to doubt her recollection. Even if what Valliant says is true about husbands receiving generous settlements (a claim he doesn't document) Frank might not have known this or might have felt there was something wrong about asking for money from Rand.

After quoting from Rand's notes for Atlas Shrugged from 1949 where Rand writes that Rearden takes pleasure in the thought of Dagny having sex with another man, Valliant writes that "this particular account of male psychology is almost certain to be an expression of her husband's own psychology." [PARC, p. 166, emphasis added.] This note isn't even about Frank and was written before Rand met the Brandens.

Or take this piece of speculation on p. 167 of PARC (emphasis added):

O'Connor almost certainly believed that his wife was an exceptional genius and a woman intensely loyal to her values. He may well have appreciated his wife's complex emotional--and intellectual--needs. Possessing such a sensitive and daring soul [it's now a fact] may well have given him the capacity to embrace his wife's quest for joy, a capacity obviously not shared by the Brandens. (And he surely could have left Rand without much fear, had he truly objected to the sitation.)

The only direct evidence bearing on the affair's effect on Frank are the reports of Nathaniel Branden and Barbara Branden that it hurt Frank. To to extent that one need speculate, experience indicates that these types of relationships cause hurt and even the innocent party may feel "conflicted." Valliant has to admit that "[w]hether they were always truly happy together, especially in light of Rand's affair, can be questioned . . . ." [PARC, p. 157.]

4. Alan Greenspan

In his recent memoirs, Alan Greenspan (a member of the Collective who sided with Rand in 1968) says he remained a "close friend" of Rand's until her death. On the back of my copy of PAR, there is a supportive blurb from Greenspan: "A fascinating insight into one of the most thoughtful authors of this century."

If someone who knew Rand well for 30 years vouches for the book, by what right does Valliant (who didn't know Rand) denounce the book as one long "abitrary assertion"?

Ayn Rand Bookstore Catalog

[Cross-Posted at Ayn Rand Contra Human Nature]

My copy of The Ayn Rand Bookstore 2008 Catalog arrived the other day. The ARB is owned by the ARI, so you can be sure that you are getting your Objectivism straight-up. The catalog is 74 pages and well produced. It contains lectures, books, coffee mugs, t-shirts and just about everything else needed to make you a passionate valuer of all things Randian.

What is most striking about the catalog is how prominently Leonard Peikoff is featured. On page 2, right after “Who was Ayn Rand?”, there is “Who is Leonard Peikoff?” He is, of course, “the preeminent authority on Objectivism.” In fact, Peikoff’s works come before Rand’s. ARB even sells a documentary on Peikoff. “The life of Leonard Peikoff is a heroic one. From his early years as a precocious student tortured by the dichotomy of the ‘moral’ vs. the ‘practical’ . . . to his . . . already-classic books . . . .”

The catalog also contains the odd disclaimer that “the inclusion of Leonard Peikoff’s materials . . . does not imply that he agrees with the content of other items herein.” No such disclaimer is given for associates of Ayn Rand such as Harry Binswanger or Allan Gotthelf. I guess Peikoff doesn’t call himself Rand’s “intellectual heir” for nothing.

You can purchase lectures by Peikoff on subjects big and small, from his “Induction in Philosophy in Physics” where he solves the problem of induction (thus completing “in every essential respect, the validation of reason”) to “Poems I Like—and Why.” This doesn’t come cheap: $205.00 for the former and $47.00 for the latter (plus $27.00 shipping). And why is it that none of the material in the catalog is available to download to your MP3 players? Wouldn’t downloads be cheaper for the ARB to produce (no need to make CDs) and save customers the rather hefty shipping costs?

The ARB offers several courses and lectures by David Harriman, ARI’s resident expert on physics and philosophical issues related thereto. Readers of ARCHNBlog won’t be surprised to learn that modern physics has been “corrupted” by Kant. Space is even a “chimera” (why not an anti-concept?) and we should return to “the relational view held by Aristotle.”

There are many lectures that would be of interest to anyone critical or sympathetic to Objectivism. If you want to know the Objectivist take on numerous topics not addressed by Rand, there is a dearth of published sources. I’d be willing to pony up some of my hard earned cash to learn what Objectivists think of Karl Popper, or how the Objectivist theory of concepts differs from other theories, but these lectures are just a bit too expensive. And given the bluster that Official Objectivists often direct toward non-Objectivists, I expect to be disappointed.

There’s truly something for everyone in the catalog. Psychologists Edwin Locke and Ellen Kenner even offer a course on sex containing role-playing dialogues “suitable for . . . same-sex couples.” One wonders what Rand would have thought.

The Literature of Orthodox Objectivism

In 1967, Ayn Rand’s philosophy of Objectivism became complete. In that year, Rand published her collection of essays entitled Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology (it was published by Mentor with Leonard Peikoff’s essay in 1979). By that time, she had written The Fountainhead, Atlas Shrugged and published her important articles “The Objectivist Ethics” and “The Nature of Government.”

Considering the revolutionary nature of Objectivism and the pure evil and evident absurdity of non-Objectivist thought, one might assume that Objectivists would rush into print with defenses and elaborations of Objectivism. Best I can tell, the number of books actually advancing Objectivism is quite small. (I exclude books written by non-ARI Objectivists).

1. Leonard Peikoff, The Ominous Parallels (1982)
2. Leonard Peikoff, Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand (1993)
3. David Kelley, The Evidence of the Senses (1988)
4. Harry Binswanger, The Biological Basis of Teleological Concepts (his doctoral thesis, published by the ARI press)
5. Tara Smith, Viable Values (2000)
6. Tara Smith, Ayn Rand’s Normative Ethics (2006)

Even if I’ve forgotten a book or two, this is hardly an impressive list. Granted there is a fair amount of literature produced by Objectivists, but much of it is general discussions of Rand or material unrelated to Objectivism per se. I would put in this list Allan Gotthelf’s 2000 book On Ayn Rand (a 100 page synopsis of Rand’s thought) and Andrew Bernstein’s The Capitalist Manifesto, a defense of capitalism. One prolific Objectivist is Robert Mayhew, who has edited collections about We the Living, Anthem, The Fountainhead, Rand’s “marginalia,” Rand’s answers to questions posed at lectures or interviews, and a book on Rand’s testimony before the House Committee on Un-American Activities on the movie “Song of Russia” (Ayn Rand and Song of Russia).

While Objectivists are short on writing books, they are long on producing taped lectures. Quite often one will hear Objectivists recommend Leonard Peikoff’s tape courses, such as Objectivism Through Induction, to those who raise issues about Objectivism. I haven’t listened to this course, but it’s unreasonable to expect critics to spend $270.00 to purchase the CDs. (One can purchase slickly produced courses from The Teaching Company for much less.) If this course is so great, why doesn’t Peikoff publish transcripts of it?

For years we have heard that Peikoff will be publishing a book on his DIM Hypothesis, David Harriman a book on physics applying Peikoff’s theory of induction, and Harry Binswanger on consciousness. If these books see the light of day and are reasonably priced, I will be among the first purchasers.

Test Your Knowledge, Number 8

Identify the following bands:

1. Jefferson Airplane

2. Yes

3. Kansas

4. Lynyrd Skynyrd

With its successor:

A. Jefferson Starship

B. Proto-Kaw

C. Rossington-Collins

D. Anderson, Wakeman, Bruford and Howe

Rand's Style of Argument, Part 2

[Cross-Posted at Ayn Rand Contra Human Nature]

In the first part of this post, I discussed Rand’s style of argumentation as found in Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology. As I pointed out, Rand often defends her position using as a background the supposedly failed views of other philosophers. She takes much the same approach in “The Objectivist Ethics.”

Rand quickly disposes with the entire history of ethical thought. “In the sorry record of the history of mankind’s ethics—with few rare, and unsuccessful, exceptions—moralists have regarded ethics as the province of whims, that is: of the irrational.” Rand does not provide us with the names of those “rare” philosophers who consider ethics to be based on something other than whims. In any event, her claim is certainly exaggerated.

First, as Huemer notes, it is inaccurate to say that Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus, Epictetus, Aquinas, Butler, Kant, Bentham, Mill, Bradley and Moore regarded ethics as the province of whims and the irrational. And, even if unsuccessful, they are not the few.

Second, there is an entire traditional of natural law ethics which seeks to derive universal ethical principles from objective reality. Aristotle was called the “father of natural law.” Heinrich Rommen writes that, for Aristotle, “The supreme norm of morality is accordingly this: Realize your essential form, your nature. The natural is the ethical, and the essence is unchangeable.” (Rommen, The Natural Law, p. 15.) Thomas Aquinas, among others, passed this tradition to the West via his synthesis of Aristotelian and Christian thought.

Natural law theories were prominent in the Enlightenment. As Lord Kames, an important thinker in the Scottish Enlightenment, wrote, “A lion has claws, because nature made him an animal of prey. A man has fingers, because he is a social animal to procure food by art not by force. It is thus we discover for what end we were designed by nature, or the Author. And the same chain of reasoning points out to us the laws by which we ought to regulate our actions: for acting according to our nature, is acting so as to answer the end of our creation.” (Henry Home (Lord Kames), Essays on the Principles of Morality and Natural Religion, pp. 25-26.)

Natural law ethics wasn’t dead by Rand’s time either. One example is philosopher Henry Veatch who published a defense of Aristotelian ethics in his 1962 book Rational Man. (Rand dismisses Aristotle with the debatable claim that he based his ethics on observations of what wise and noble men did, without asking why they did it.)

Since nature law ethics have commonalities with Rand’s ethics (and in many ways hers seems to be a version of it), her readers would certainly benefit from a discussion of why these theories are unsuccessful.

Rand’s first failed school is the “mystics,” who allegedly hold the “arbitrary, unaccountable ‘will of God’ as the standard of the good and as the validation of their ethics.” No mystic is mentioned, but I assume that these are conventional religious thinkers. Even so, the description isn’t apt. Most religious philosophers would probably disagree with the claim that they consider God’s commands “arbitrary.” The Ten Commandments, for example, contain a mix of religious injunctions (e.g., have no other gods) and practical commands (e.g, don’t steal). Religious thinkers often adopt a natural law ethic, arguing that God created human beings with a certain nature. (See the above quote from Lord Kames.)

Rand next turns to the “neomystics.” These philosophers attempted to “break the traditional monopoly of mysticism in the field of ethics . . . . But their attempts consisted of accepting the ethical doctrines of the mystics and of trying to justify them on social grounds, merely substituting society for God." Particularly problematic is Rand’s claim that apparently all neomystics are advocates of the unlimited state. Her statement is so sweeping that it should be quoted in detail:

“This meant, in logic—and, today, in worldwide practice—that society stands above any principle of ethics, since it is the source, standard and criterion of ethics, since ‘the good’ is whatever it wills, whatever it happens to assert as its own welfare and pleasure. This meant that ‘society’ may do anything it pleases, since ‘the good’ is whatever it chooses to do because it chooses to do it. And—since there is no such entity as ‘society,’ since society is only a number of individual men-this meant that some men (the majority or any gang that claims to be its spokesman) are ethically entitled to pursue any whims (or any atrocities) they are entitled to pursue, while other men are ethically obliged to spend their lives in the service of that gang’s desire.”

Taken literally, Rand is arguing that no secular philosopher places any limits on the state’s power over the individual. This hardly seems the case, the utilitarian Ludwig von Mises being an obvious counter-example.

As in ITOE, Rand’s scholarship is quite poor. Rand mentions only Aristotle, Nietzsche, Bentham, Mill and Comte. None of these philosophers is discussed in any detail, and none is quoted or cited. Rand’s only quoted source is herself, principally John Galt’s speech from Atlas Shrugged. (Galt is called, curiously, Objectivism’s “best representative.”) The amount of hyperbole is excessive, even by Rand’s standards. Rand is certainly entitled to disagree with altruism, but do altruists really hold death as their ultimate value?

Ayn Rand's Style of Argument, Part I

[Cross-Posted at Ayn Rand Contra Human Nature]

Ayn Rand’s two most important philosophic works are her essay “The Objectivist Ethics” and the essays on concepts that form Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology. In their critiques of these works, Gary Merrill and Michael Huemer have drawn attention to an important technique in Rand’s argumentation. Rand defends her position using as a background the supposedly failed attempts of previous philosophers, arguing that the credibility of her position is advanced because their positions are so blatantly false (if not pure evil). To the extent that Rand fails to accurately describe these opposing views, her case for Objectivism becomes that much less credible. (Some of what I say is indebted to the discussions of Merrill and Huemer.)

Rand begins her discussion in ITOE with a review of various philosophical traditions on the question of universals with an overview of five schools: extreme realism, moderate realism, nominalism, extreme nominalism and conceptualism. (p. 2.) We are, however, given only two philosophers (Plato and Aristotle) who hold any of these positions (extreme realism and moderate realism). Not a single representative is given for the nominalist, extreme nominalist and conceptualist schools. This makes it difficult for the reader to determine the accuracy of Rand’s description. It might be the case that they were wrestling with problems or encountered difficulties which Rand’s theory also has. Her readers will never know.

Rand returns to these schools later with slightly more elaboration. Rand says the following about nominalists and conceptualists: “The nominalist and conceptualist schools regard concepts as subjective, i.e., as products of man’s consciousness, unrelated to the facts of reality, as mere ‘names’ or notions arbitrarily assigned to arbitrary groupings of concretes on the ground of vague, inexplicable resemblances.” (p. 53.) This is interesting because Rand’s position that only particulars exist is (in the view of many commentators) a version of nominalism or conceptualism. Is it really the case that all nominalists and conceptualists consider concepts “unrelated to the facts of reality”? Is there not a single significant thinker in this tradition who considered concepts objective? Doing a bit of reading lately in John Dewey (who probably falls in conceptualist camp), I came across the following from his Nature and Experience: “Meaning is objective and universal . . . . It requires the discipline of ordered and deliberate experimentation to teach us that some meanings, as delightful or horrendous as they are, are meanings communally developed in the process of communal festivity or control, and do not represent the polities, and ways and means of nature apart from social control . . . the truth in classical philosophy in assigning objectivity to meanings, essences, ideas remains unassailable.” (Nature and Experience, pp. 188-89.) Maybe Dewey and the like are mistaken, but it hardly seems fair to imply that their motivation is the destruction of the human mind without some evidence.

Even if the various positions with respect to universals are sufficiently well known as to justify Rand’s cursory discussion, there is much in ITOE that calls out for explanation. Merrill points to an example which has became somewhat famous: “As an illustration, observe what Bertrand Russell was able to perpetrate because people thought they ‘kinda knew’ the meaning of the concept of ‘number’ . . . .” (pp. 50-51.) Because of Rand’s unwillingness to provide a citation or elaboration concerning what Russell perpetrated, even her point gets lost.

There are many other jabs in ITOE which are almost as egregious. Rand occasionally objects to “Linguistic Analysis,” without much of a description of this diverse movement. (pp. 47-48, 50 and 77.) She does, at least, name Ludwig Wittgenstein’s theory of family resemblance as an example of what is supposedly wrong with it. (p. 78.)

Curiously, Kant does not loom large in ITOE, or at least not in the way one would expect. Since Kant was the most evil man in history and universals the most important problem in philosophy, one might expect that Rand would discuss Kant’s theory of universals. When Rand does get around to discussing Kant, she attacks him for inspiring pragmatists, logical positivists and Linguistic Analysts (“mini-Kantians”). Her two sources for Kant are herself (a quotation from For the New Intellectual) and a quote from the now obscure Kantian Henry Mansel. (pp. 77, 80-81.)

What David Gordon says of Peikoff’s The Ominous Parallels is even more true of ITOE: it is “the history of philosophy with the arguments left out.”

Oh Yes, They Called Him The Streak

[Cross-Posted at Ayn Rand Contra Human Nature]

Objectivists often accuse non-Objectivists, anti-Objectivists and apostates from ARI Objectivism as suffering from “rationalism.” This term appears to mean something like applying principles to situations without taking into account the facts of experience. A recent example is Leonard Peikoff’s 2006 statement that anyone who considers voting Republican or abstaining from voting “does not understand the philosophy of Objectivism, except perhaps as a rationalistic system detached from the world.” Incidentally, the term does not appear in this sense in either The Ayn Rand Lexicon or the index to Leonard Peikoff’s Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand.

Ellen Stuttle has drawn attention to the following from Leonard Peikoff’s 1987 talk “My Thirty Years With Ayn Rand,” reprinted in The Voice of Reason:

About a dozen years ago, Ayn Rand and I were watching the Academy Awards on television; it was the evening when a streaker flashed by during the ceremonies. Most people probably dismissed the incident with some remark like: "He's just a kid" or "It's a high-spirited prank" or "He wants to get on TV." But not Ayn Rand. Why, her mind, wanted to know, does this "kid" act in this particular fashion? What is the difference between his "prank" and that of college students on a lark who swallow goldfish or stuff themselves into telephone booths? How does his desire to appear on TV differ from that of a typical game-show contestant? In other words, Ayn Rand swept aside from the outset the superficial aspects of the incident and the standard irrelevant comments in order to reach the essence, which has to pertain to this specific action in this distinctive setting.

"Here," she said to me in effect, "is a nationally acclaimed occasion replete with celebrities, jeweled ballgowns, coveted prizes, and breathless cameras, an occasion offered to the country as the height of excitement, elegance, glamor--and what this creature wants to do is drop his pants in the middle of it all and thrust his bare buttocks into everybody's face. What then is his motive? Not high spirits or TV coverage, but destruction--the satisfaction of sneering at and undercutting that which the rest of the country looks up to and admires." In essence, she concluded, the incident was an example of nihilism, which is the desire not to have or enjoy values, but to nullify and eradicate them.

[. . .]

Having grasped the streaker's nihilism, therefore, she was eager to point out to me some very different examples of the same attitude. Modern literature, she observed, is distinguished by its creators' passion not to offer something new and positive, but to wipe out: to eliminate plots, heroes, motivation, even grammar and syntax; in other words, their brazen desire to destroy their own field along with the great writers of the past by stripping away from literature every one of its cardinal attributes. Just as Progressive education is the desire for education stripped of lessons, reading, facts, teaching, and learning. Just as avant-garde physics is the gleeful cry that there is no order in nature, no law, no predictability, no causality. That streaker, in short, was the very opposite of an isolated phenomenon. He was a microcosm of the principle ruling modern culture, a fleeting representative of that corrupt motivation which Ayn Rand has described so eloquently as "hatred of the good for being the good." And what accounts for such widespread hatred? she asked at the end. Her answer brings us back to the philosophy we referred to earlier, the one that attacks reason and reality wholesale and thus makes all values impossible: the philosophy of Immanuel Kant.

The event in question was the 1974 Academy Awards. By that time, streaking had become the national prank. Ray Stevens’ song “The Streak” had been written but not published. Based on the little evidence available to Rand that night, the most likely explanation was that the streaker was just another “kid” pulling a prank, and the Academy Awards program chosen because it would give him maximum “exposure.”

In fact, the streaker was one Robert Opel, a thirty-three year old variously described as a photographer and an advertising executive. Opel wanted to make a statement about public nudity and sexual freedom (he was for it) as well as jump-start his career. His motive, then, does not appear to have been nihilism or tearing down the Academy Awards.

Rand’s discussion of the streaker incident highlights a couple of problems common with her analysis of historical and cultural events. First, she tends to draw conclusions in the absence of evidence. Second, she tends to ascribe philosophical motivations to individuals without considering more mundane explanations. In short, it was Rand who was guilty of rationalism in this case.

In the above excerpt, Peikoff continues that hearing Rand that night inspired him to write the chapter on Weimar culture in The Ominous Parallels. This misguided work, in which Peikoff all but blames Kant for Auschwitz, illustrates the streaker problem in reverse: the facts available to the historian are so vast that determining the one philosophic principle explaining it all (if there is just one) is close to impossible. It is more likely that a number of philosophical trends converged in 1933 which, when combined with the German public’s frustration over the economy and the humiliation of the Treaty of Versailles, resulted in the Nazi takeover. As Greg Nyquist argues in his book, if Hitler’s adversaries had adopted a better strategy, it is possible that the Nazis might not have seized power.

Jim Valliant Unplugged

Jim Valliant recently "went acoustic" on www.RichardDawkins.net (registration required, even to view).

Among other pearls of wisdom, Mr. Valliant explained that didn't impugn the motives of the Brandens in throwing (or in his version, merely attending) the surprise party for Rand in honor of the publication of Atlas Shrugged.

This is Mr. Valliant yesterday on RichardDawkins.net:

Of course, PARC attributes no such malevolence to them for throwing a party.

Mr. Valliant said something quite different in PARC:

Rand was not seeking to 'control' anyone’s context here but her own. It was the Brandens who were part of the effort to 'control' Rand’s context through deception—Rand was merely objecting to the deception. (We shall see that this will not be the last time they will attempt to do this, merely one of the less important times.)

Mr. Valliant even claimed that no one had ever found a misquotation in PARC. Since numerous misquotations have been pointed out by me and others, this was quite a claim to make.

I responded with the following:

Here is Barbara Branden:

He retained his studio in the apartment building where he and Ayn lived, and continued to spend his days there. And each week, when Ayn’s housekeeper went to the studio to clean it, she found no new paintings but, instead, rows of empty liquor bottles.

Here is Jim Valliant:

As her sole corroboration for these sources, Ms. Branden refers to the “rows of empty liquor bottles” in O’Connor’s studio which Rand’s housekeeper is said to have found there after O’Connor’s death.

The response? As someone used to say, "Blank out."

John Dewey on Concepts

From How We Think (1910)

Conceptions are not derived from a multitude of different definite objects by leaving out the qualities in which they differ by retaining those in which they agree. The origins of concepts is sometimes described to be as if a child began with a lot of different particular things, say his particular dogs; his own Fido, his neighbor’s Carlo, his cousin’s Tray. Having all these different objects before him, he analyzes them into a lot of different qualities, say (a) color, (b) size, (c) shape, (d) number of legs, (e) quantity and quality of hair, (f) digestive organs and so on; and them strikes out all the unlike qualities (such as color, size, shape, hair), retaining traits such as quadruped and domesticated, which they all have in general.

As a matter of fact, the child begins with whatever significance he has got out of the one dog and has seen, heard, and handled. He has found that he can carry over from one experience of this object to subsequent experience certain expectations of certain characteristic modes of behavior – may expect these even before they show themselves. He tends to assume this attitude of anticipation whenever any clue or stimulus presents itself’ whenever the object gives him any excuse for it. Thus he might call cats little dogs, or horses big dogs. But finding that other expected traits and modes of behavior are not fulfilled, he is forced to throw out certain traits from the dog-meaning, while he contrasts certain other traits are selected and emphasized. As he further applies the meaning to other dogs, the dog-meaning gets still further defined and refined. He does not begin with a lot of ready-made objects from which he extracts a common meaning; he tries to apply every new experience whatever from is old experience will help him understand it, and as this process of constant assumption and experience is fulfilled and refuted by results, his conceptions get body and clearness.

Ayn Rand and Compromise

[Cross-Posted at Ayn Rand Contra Human Nature]

Ayn Rand is often admired for her devotion to principles and unwillingness to compromise. In her biography of Rand, Barbara Branden tells the moving story of how Rand fought heroically to prevent changes to the script of The Fountainhead during its filming. (Branden, The Passion of Ayn Rand, pp. 208-209.)

Rand’s most important discussion of compromise is a brief three page essay in The Virtue of Selfishness entitled “Doesn’t Life Require Compromise?” She boldly proclaims that “there can be no compromise on basic principles or on fundamental issues.” (Rand, The Virtue of Selfishness, p. 80.) She highlights the mixed economy as an example of an unacceptable compromise on moral principles. “There can be no compromise between freedom and government controls; to accept ‘just a few controls’ is to surrender the principle of inalienable individual rights . . . .” (Id., pp. 79-80.)

As is often the case with Rand, she is good on principles, but weak on specifics. She gives examples of acceptable compromises (such as coming to a mutually agreed upon price with a vendor) and unacceptable compromises (attending a religious ceremony to placate one’s family). These examples make sense from the Randian perspective, but why not discuss situations that are more likely to confront the average Objectivist? For example, Rand considered taxation immoral. Yet she faithfully paid her taxes. By paying taxes one isn’t one “sanctioning” the welfare state? What about working for the government? Isn’t this a compromise on moral principles? A state employee’s income comes from money immorally seized by the government. Many Objectivist professors, including Leonard Peikoff, have taught at state run universities. Some, such as Robert Mayhew, have taught at religious schools. Voting appears problematic as well. Unless there is a consistently Objectivist candidate, isn’t it a compromise to vote? Wouldn’t the prudent course be to abstain from voting? Rand, however, voted for Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. (During the 2006 elections, Leonard Peikoff went so far as to claim that anyone who refused to vote Democratic or abstained from voting “does not understand the philosophy of Objectivism.”)

Throughout her life Rand had little use for economists and conservative intellectuals who were not consistent supporters of the free market economy. In her recently published question and answers, she described Milton Friedman as a “miserable eclectic.” (Mayhew, ed., Ayn Rand Answers, p. 43.) In her marginalia, she launched a nasty attack on Friedrich von Hayek calling him, among other things, a “God damn fool” and a “vicious bastard.” (Mayhew, ed., Ayn Rand’s Marginalia, pp. 149 and 151.)

Interestingly, one compromising free market economist whom Rand admired was Alan Greenspan. Greenspan met Rand in 1951 and remained close friends with her until her death in 1982. He contributed three essays to her anthology Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, one supporting the gold standard and two criticizing, respectively, antitrust laws and consumer protection regulations.

In 1974, Greenspan was chosen by President Richard Nixon to head his Council of Economic Advisors. After Nixon resigned, President Ford re-nominated him. Rand attended Greenspan’s swearing-in ceremony in the White House. Greenspan states in his memoirs that by this time he had disagreed with Rand’s belief in government financing through voluntary contributions and hints that he had come to reject consistent laissez-faire policies.

Shortly before Rand’s death, Greenspan accepted an appointment by President Ronald Reagan to head the National Commission on Social Security Reform, which recommended large tax increases. The culmination of his career was his lengthy chairmanship of the Federal Reserve Board. As Chairman of “the Fed,” Greenspan, in effect, repudiated his three essays in Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal. The Fed sanctions the printing of paper money, oversees anti-trust laws with respect to bank mergers and heavily regulates consumer transactions. “Compromise,” he now says, is “the price of civilization.”

Rand, of course, had no way of knowing that her friend and disciple would become the enabler-in-chief of the mixed economy, but she could not have been unaware of his partial betrayal of Objectivist principles by 1974. Ten years earlier she had written in “The Cult of Moral Grayness” that a mixed economy is “an immoral war of pressure groups, devoid of principles . . . whose outward form is a game of compromise.” (Rand, The Virtue of Selfishness, p. 91, emphasis is the original.)

Test Your Knowledge, Number 7

Identify the following:

1. Railroad Earth

2. Rare Earth

3. Rare Bird

4. Earthworks

As:

A. American bluegrass band

B. English progressive rock band 1969-1975

C. English jazz band featuring ex-Yes drummer Bill Bruford

D. American rock band

Founders College Curriculum - Philosophy I

Professor Robert Garmong's curriculum for Philosophy I (Ethics) is available.

The following books are required:

Plato, The Apology of Socrates
Allan Bloom, The Closing of the American Mind (excerpts)
The King James Bible (Matthew, Luke, and Acts)
Plato, Euthyphro
Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics
John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism and On Liberty
Immanuel Kant, Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals
Ayn Rand, The Virtue of Selfishness

The following movies/TV shows are analyzed:

High Noon
Casablanca
Buffy the Vampire Slayer (selected episodes)

The list is quite good and not particularly Objectivist. I seem to recall that Rand was a big fan of Casablanca.

Test Your Knowledge, Number 6

Identity the following guitar slingers

1. Robin Trower

2. Peter Frampton

3. Dave Mason

4. Jeff Beck

With the band they were associated

A. Procul Harum

B. Humble Pie

C. The Yardbirds

D. Traffic

Founders College Curriculum - Novels I

Novels I has six novels:

1. Walter Scott, Ivanhoe
2. Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter
3. Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities
4. Victor Hugo, Ninety-Three
5. Edward Cline, Sparrowhawk Book One
6. Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

This list is broadly Randian. Ivanhoe, The Scarlet Letter, and Ninety-Three are books that Rand read, and Ninety-Three was perhaps her favorite. It doesn't appear that Rand said anything about Dickens and Austen.

Most notable is the first volume of Edward Cline's book Sparrowhawk series. Cline, who is associated with the ARI, is quite dogmatic, even for an ARIan.

Founders College Curriculum - Writing and Grammar

Here is the course.

There are four books that are required or recommended:

(1) Writing and Thinking: A Handbook of Composition and Revision, Norman Foerster and J. M. Steadman Jr., with foreword by Jean F. Moroney. Paper Tiger, N.J., (2000).

(2) Rex Barks: Diagramming Sentences Made Easy, Phyllis
Davenport, Second Renaissance Books, (1999).

(3) The Elements of Style, William Strunk and E.B. White, 4th
edition with foreword by Roger Angell, Longman (1999).

(4) A Dictionary of Modern English Usage, H.W. Fowler, 2nd
revised edition, Oxford University Press (2003).


The first two are ARI-approved texts. Writing and Thinking is published by ARI-associated The Paper Tiger. Jean Moroney is the wife of Harry Binswanger, Official Objectivism's number 2.

Rex Barks is also published by The Paper Tiger, and is favored by ARIans.

Founders College Curriculum - Ancient & Medieval History

The course syllabi for this semester at Founders College are now on-line.

Ancient and Medieval History has the least overtly Objectivist slant.

The required books are:

Hans Nissen, The Early History of the Ancient Near East, 9000 BC-2000BC (University of Chicago Press, 1988)

Charles Freeman, Egypt, Greece and Rome: Civilizations of the Ancient Mediterranean (Oxford University Press, 2004)

Plato, The Complete Works (Hackett Publishing, 1997)

William H. McNeil, The Rise Of The West (University of Chicago Press, 1992)

Chris Wickham, Framing The Early Middle Ages (Oxford University Press, 2007)

William Chester Jordan, Europe In The High Middle Ages (Penguin, 2004)

Most interesting is that students will be reading Plato's Republic in its entirety (a fairly long work). Given that Prof. Garmong has assigned some Plato for his Philosophy I course, wouldn't a book containing primary sources or a work such as Herodotus' Histories be better? This appears to emphasize the Objectivist view that philosophical ideas are the main drivers of history.

The time-span of the course is also of note. It starts with the beginning of history and ends at about 1300. However, the second year, second semester history course at Founders is Great Figures of the Industrial Revolution, a course with an explicitly Objectivist tilt. I'm all in favor of studying Edison, Ford and Vanderbilt, but the inclusion of a separate course on them has resulted in what should be a two semester course reduced to a one semester course.

Professor Thomas Woods Interviewed by Jeff Tucker

Dr. Woods discusses his new book on American history.

Founders College

Over at Greg Nyquist and Dan Barnes' blog, Ayn Rand Contra Human Nature, folks have been discussing Founders College. For those who don't know, it's a new liberal arts college in Virginia which obviously has ties to Objectivism (of the ARI variety), but doesn't want to come clean on its connection. (Which isn't to say that it is supported or sponsored by the ARI, which I doubt.)

Here is further evidence of the Objectivist connection.

Compare Founders' logo:

With this cover to Rand's The Romantic Manifesto:

For what it's worth, I think a college with a moderate Objectivist tilt would be a step up from what Russell Kirk called Behemoth State University.

The Passion of James Valliant's Criticism, Part II

The Passion of James Valliant's Criticism, Part II is out.

Test Your Knowledge, Number 5

Identify the following:

1. Carlos Slim

2. Slim Whitman

3. Slim Pickens

4. T. Boone Pickens

As:

A. Mexican Billionaire

B. Actor

C. Corporate tycoon

D. Country Crooner

James Valliant and Rand's Use of Dexamyl

The extent to which James Valliant is willing to misrepresent his sources can be seen in his evaluation of Barbara Branden’s discussion of Rand’s use of a diet pill, Dexamyl (which contains an amphetamine).

On page 173 Branden mentions that Rand had low physical energy level. and was worried about her weight. She then drops the following footnote, which I will quote in full:

"It was during this period of nonstop work on The Fountainhead that Ayn went to see a doctor. She had heard there was a harmless pill one could take to increase one's energy and lessen one's appetite. The doctor, telling her there would be no negative consequences, prescribed a low dosage of a small green tablet which doctors had begun prescribing rather routinely. Its trade name was Dexamyl. Ayn took two of these pills each day for more than thirty years. They appeared to work: she felt that her physical energy had increased, although it was never high, and her weight stayed under reasonable control. In fact, medical opinion today suggests that they soon ceased to be a source of physical energy; their effect shortly became that of a placebo."

"Dexamyl consists of two chemicals: an amphetamine and a barbiturate. It was not until the sixties that researchers investigated the effects of large doses of these chemicals. They found that extremely high doses were harmful, sometimes even resulting in paranoid symptoms; but to this day, there is only the most fragmentary and contradictory scientific evidence to suggest that low doses such as Ayn took could be harmful. As one pharmacological specialist has said: 'Perhaps they hurt her, and perhaps they didn't.'"

"In the early seventies, when for the first time she became seriously ill, her doctor took her medical history, and, quite innocently, she told him about the Dexamyl. Disapproving, he ordered her to cease taking them at once. She never took another."

"I include this discussion only because I have learned that a number of people, aware that she took this medication, have drawn ominous conclusions about Ayn's mental health; there is no scientific basis for their conclusions." [PAR, p. 173 n. 1.]

There have been (and continue to be) unsupported allegations over the years that Rand was addicted to “speed.” Branden wanted to put these allegations to rest.

Valliant’s mangling of Branden’s footnote is as follows:

“The level of Ms. Branden’s desperation for evidence can be measured by the fact that she speculates in a footnote that the low-dosage diet pill that Rand was prescribed by a doctor ‘may’ have resulted in ‘paranoid symptoms.’ Ms. Branden does so despite also conceding that the pills only had a ‘placebo effect’ after just a short time. Nor is Ms. Branden in any way dissuaded by the fact that Rand easily discontinued their use, again on medical advice.” [PARC, p. 51.]

Society Without A State

Society Without a State by Murray Rothbard is probably the best introduction to anarcho-capitalism and how such a society might function

Free and Pay Media

The internet makes it possible to distribute large amounts of media for free. It's interesting to see the different approaches taken by organizations.

The Ludwig von Mises Institute provides audio or video of what seems like all of their conferences for free. For example, David Gordon's recent series on The History of Political Philosophy was posted on its website within a day or so of each lecture. Religious organizations also provide large amounts of free material, much of which is of interest to those who don't share their perspective. Reformed Theological Seminary has a number of free course lectures. I've been listening to John Frame's lectures on the history of philosophy and they are quite good. Also worth listening to are Knox Chamblin's lectures on C.S. Lewis.

The Ayn Rand Institute has only a limited amount of free stuff. They have recently posted some free lectures by Rand and others, available to registered users. Most of ARI's material is quite expensive. The Teaching Company's slickly produced courses must be half the price of ARI's lectures, and you can download them and save shipping costs. The Teaching Company's courses I've heard are excellent, if a bit self-consciously "middle of the road."

I'd recommend Prof. Daniel Robinson's course Great Ideas of Psychology which is excellent, if a bit chatty in places. (When the course is on sale you will be able to download if for considerably less than $100.)

Fred Seddon on James Valliant versus the Brandens

This is an interesting essay by Fred Seddon on part of PARC that I haven't discussed (the break with Rand). A good example of how Valliant's claims don't stand up to scrutiny. Note the non-existent fact checking by Valliant and the poor sourcing.