| | So, I'm silly, eh?
Let me reply by way of a few more substantive examples.
I am known in academia not only as a "Rand scholar" but as a "Marx scholar" and a "Hayek scholar" and a "Rothbard scholar" too. I've done research on Marx and Hayek and Rothbard. I know of no similar "controls" on research demanding an ideological "litmus test" by the Hayek or Rothbard estates. In fact, I have many substantive differences with Murray Rothbard's work, and my affiliation with the Ludwig von Mises Institute, which houses Rothbard's private papers, has never been questioned. And I would never be restricted from looking over Rothbard's papers in the preparation of any manuscript contained therein, just because I don't agree with Rothbard on many important issues.
The Marx situation is a bit less complex, because most of the material is in the public domain. But there are plenty of "Marx scholars" out there who have worked hard on Marx's original manuscripts, with no intention whatsoever of supporting the theses therein. In other words, they come to Marx scholarship as serious critics of Marx.
We are at the beginnings of a long development of similar Rand scholarship. It will probably take a generation--or two--for these kinds of controls over the Rand papers to be loosened, but they will be loosened, probably not in my lifetime. It is very similar to the controls placed on the Nietzsche and Freud estates in the aftermath of the deaths of these two thinkers--but eventually, the truth will out, and regulation of the dissemination of knowledge must fail.
It is understandable, of course, why estates try to control the archives of the thinkers whose reputations they 'protect'. They don't want statements to be yanked out of context and misrepresented.
But in the end, who cares? I'm convinced that full and open access to such archives (which would have been possible had all of Rand's papers been placed in the Library of Congress) would eventually lead to full and open discussion of Rand's complete intellectual legacy in a way that, in and of itself, would guarantee against any such misrepresentation (while also guaranteeing against the kinds of suspicion that surround the editorial changes made to Rand's previously unpublished work when it has been published posthumously). Right now, we do have a sizable contingent of individuals who are on the left, who are slowly emerging as "Rand scholars." They may not be interested in supporting Rand's conclusions but they are interested enough in Rand as a thinker of enormous influence to do further research on her. I count among these individuals, people such as Gene Bell-Villada, whose book ART FOR ART'S SAKE AND LITERARY LIFE was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. He has dealt with Rand not only in that book, but in THE PIANIST WHO LIKED AYN RAND (a novella), in a contribution to the Aesthetics Symposium on Rand's aesthetics in THE JOURNAL OF AYN RAND STUDIES, and in a JARS reply to an article written by scholar D. Barton Johnson on Nabokov and Rand. In fact, Bell-Villada has staged a full-blown symposium on Rand for the Modern Language Association. I don't agree with his conclusions on Rand, but I do think he is an emerging, serious Rand scholar. And yet, he's a Marxist. If I had control over Rand's estate, I'd have no problem opening the archives to him---or to anyone else---provided that strict controls are placed on the usage of original resources to guard against their physical damage (which is why I am supportive of the Ayn Rand Archives' work to microfiche materials for research purposes).
So, I'm not being silly, after all. I'm actually thinking of real-life examples of individuals who might qualify as Rand scholars, but who are actually Marxists! It would never occur to me to ask such people to sign an ideological loyalty oath in order to give them access to the papers of ~any~ thinker, or at least ~any~ thinker that should be treated ~seriously~ as a figure in intellectual history.
What are the orthodox defenders so ~afraid~ of? If reality is what it is, and the truth will out, then it should not matter ~who~ sees these archives. That's the purpose of intellectual give-and-take: to allow free and open inquiry, and to let the power of ideas take precedence over the power of partisanship (which is why I wrote this article to begin with).
Philippe Chamy raises some good points about the sociology of related sects in religious and intellectual history. I actually agree that what we are seeing is not too extraordinary. We've seem similar in-fighting, for example, in the early Marxist movement. The arguments, early on, all revolved around the question: Is so-and-so a true Marxist? Those who emerged out of the "orthodox" wing of Marxism (despite Marx's protests that he was ~not~ a Marxist), depended much on the formulations of Marx's chief disciple, Engels. In fact, it was Engels' work that had the biggest effect on the development of "dialectical materialism" in the Soviet Union. But other schools of Marxism emerged too, including the "revisionists" (like E. Bernstein) and those who focused more on the more humanistic emphases of the young Marx (many of these people were at the foundation of the Frankfurt school). And in the end, when I mention E. Bernstein, F. Engels, H. Marcuse, G. Lukacs, and others, does anybody, for a single minute, ~doubt~ that these individuals are, in fact, Marxists---whatever the important differences among them? For they all operate on the core assumptions of the Marxist intellectual paradigm.
The orthodoxy is so short-sighted, so interested in preserving the 'purity' of the ideal, that they eventually do damage to the ideal itself. For in the wide scheme of history, few, if any, intellectual historians will look back to the closing days of the 20th century or the dawning of the 21st century, with an eye toward distinguishing among Peikoff, Branden, Kelley, etc.--whatever the important differences among them. They will simply look at the core ideas that unite these individuals and conclude, appropriately, that whatever their differences, they were all examples of an emergent Objectivist tradition (or school) of thought. So, while the orthodoxy is arguing about purity, their archaic quest will most likely be swept away by the spontaneous development of alternative voices---we're seeing that development before our very eyes---voices they cannot stop, no matter how much they boycott, or otherwise denounce them.
I can think of no surer way of becoming intellectually irrelevant than to opt out of that development, to deny the reality of that which exists by evading it or ignoring it.
Cheers,
Chris
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