| | I agree that Rand's academic scholarship was one of her weakest attributes. I remember that essay of hers on Rawls coming out in The Ayn Rand Letter, which I read in the 70's right when I was just starting to read a lot of Objectivist writing. I remember feeling very uneasy about someone of her stature addressing issues of such importance, with a specific philosopher named, and writing a critique of him based on another critique of him and almost bragging that she would not read the original manuscript. I would have flunked my classes in college back then for doing something like that. It was also not one of her best moments when she offered a book that she had not read as evidence in that special dramatic rhetorical manner she used for making her points (a manner that I admire, by the way).
But I also agree that wading through Kant and Rawls are activities for the masochistic at heart, and especially in Kant's case, people who like to engage their mental capacities in far-out ways like playing mental chess or memorizing telephone books.
The truth is that if she had her mind set on singling out those particular men as primary sources of intellectual evil instead of, say, certain religious doctrines, which to my mind have wreaked much more havoc on the history of humankind (such as war, for example), then a little more first-hand - not second-hand - familiarity with their works had to be in order.
There is no way to get around it. If you are going to throw intellectual stones and expect to be taken seriously from an intellectual - not propaganda - standpoint, you have to have first-hand knowledge of your target. But I suppose you can get away with second-hand knowledge when you preach to the converted.
This in no way diminishes her stature as an original thinker, however. I know of no genius who did not have some weaker attributes.
Definition-wise, I have a small matter of something I did not understand in Fred's post. It is the expression "overload our crow". It is easy to get the gist from the context and it sounds pretty cool. But in the end, why crow? Metaphorical mental crowbar? Breaking the back of a bird (or Indian) of burden? I hope this is not about Sheryl Crow. (Sorry, I couldn't resist...)
There was another word I was not familiar with: screed. Ayn Rand wrote screeds? What the hell is that? So I looked it up. According to the American Heritage Dictionary - Second College Edition, it is: "1. A long, monotonous harangue or piece of writing."
I have read everything Rand published that I could get my hands on. She could harangue at times all right. But monotonous? Ayn Rand?
Sorry. Can't buy it.
Fred, my man, it sounds real learned (albeit a bit highfalutin) but another word is in order. Especially in the context of discussing those masters of literary style and excitement, Kant and Rawls.
Michael
|
|
