Ayn Rand and compartmentalization

I have been reading The Passion of Ayn Rand (which I love!!!), and I want to talk about compartmentalization as it pertains to Ayn Rand. I have a huge respect for Rand's philosophical achievements and her passion and her dedication to her values, but I am horrified by some of the things she did in her life. A lot of those things I have learned from Barbara's book, but I also see some of the problems in her videotaped interviews and in the stories told by others (ARI folks included). I don't really want to debate her character, but I do want to try to understand how a person can have so many psychological problems and be so emotionally repressed, and yet come up with such a wonderful description of the way reality works. Wouldn't she have had to be remarkably honest and been constantly focused on reality to come up with Objectivism? How was she able to do that in her professional life and not in her personal life? Can a person really be that compartmentalized?

P.S. Barbara, I want to tell you how wonderful I think your book is. Not only is it incredibly beautifully written, but you manage to show me what Ayn Rand was like personally, blasting away some of my illusions, without stripping the beauty away from the beautiful parts of her. I think that is a marvelous accomplishment.

Post 1

Thursday, April 14, 2005 - 2:51pm

I suspect it is very difficult for a contemporary woman to grasp just how it was during the era in which she grew up in, how much of the culture she had to overcome and re-create - yet as consequence of living within it, embroiled in it.... life for all - especially for a woman, and one living in Russia - was simply quite different, and the scars carried with her all her life.....

Even in the 1950's, how a woman was perceived, and supposed to act and/or think, was quite different from today - especially one who had lived thru all that she had in the preceeding 50 years... context is everything.....in understanding.

Post 2

Thursday, April 14, 2005 - 3:00pm

But given what her context was, how did she keep some things so rational while being so irrational in others? Why didn't her issues bleed over into her work?

Kelly

Post 3

Thursday, April 14, 2005 - 3:02pm

To say it poetically, she 'sailed beyond the sunset', while her anchor was in the mud.....

Post 4

Sunday, April 24, 2005 - 3:42pm

The power of rationalization can be very strong.

Note that Rand never thought that she was acting inconsistently with her philosophy.

She insisted to herself and others, for example, that Frank O'Connor was a John Galt because it was unacceptable for her to have married anything else. Later, Nathaniel Branden had to be a John Galt for the same reason.

She always managed to square, in her mind, whatever she did with Objectivism.

Post 5

Monday, April 25, 2005 - 4:07am

KRE wrote: "... I do want to try to understand how a person can have so many psychological problems and be so emotionally repressed, and yet come up with such a wonderful description of the way reality works. Wouldn't she have had to be remarkably honest and been constantly focused on reality to come up with Objectivism?"

I believe that people adopt ideas first, based on who they are inside. Then, they find philosophical reasons to justify them. Mostly, that results in most people mostly going along with what it seems most people mostly believe. If we don't pay our taxes, how will we fund roads and schools? Lawbreakers should be punished. I don't know what you mean by God, but I think that the universe has a purpose and we were put here for a reason and it is important to be nice to each other. Nudity is all right in art, but pornography is disgusting.

Some people spend more time thinking things through, reconciling contradictions, establishing frames of facts and reasons, and so on. Even so, I remember the murmur of objection in myself and others when a fan asked Isaac Asimov his opinion of Ayn Rand and he said, "Ayn Rand stinks." That was a disappointment -- and I chalked it up to his having contradictions in his personal philosophy, rather than to hers or my having them.

KRE: "But given what her context was, how did she keep some things so rational while being so irrational in others? Why didn't her issues bleed over into her work?"

They did. Objectivism comes in flavors because of that. (Which is an old joke for guys. What does Jello do that you cannot? Come in eight different flavors.)

Robert Malcom:"I suspect it is very difficult for a contemporary woman to grasp just how it was during the era in which she grew up in, ... Even in the 1950's, how a woman was perceived..."

As opposed to Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell, who had it easy? And what is there about being "a woman" that comes cloaked as an excuse? Why not say that Bertrand Russell was a mass of contradictions because Victorian society made irrational demands of men? Poor Karl Marx, he grew up in a society that expected men to support their families. And why can't Brad Pitt form a stable relationship or be a physicist?

Post 6

Monday, April 25, 2005 - 4:25am

KRE: "... and yet come up with such a wonderful description of the way reality works. "

As if...

On the other hand, one morning, I was in a physics lecture, and I realized that there is no such thing as "static" electricity.

Ayn Rand for me is not so much a catechism -- though it once was -- as an emotional commitment to my own senses and my ability to reason.

Of course, in De Rerum Deorum (About the Gods) one of Cicero's speakers said, "We know the gods exist because people have reported seeing them, and the senses are valid." The Romans were really unimaginative people and the Ahenobarbus brothers got that name ("red beard") because they reported to the senate that the Heavenly Twins whom they met on the road turned their beards red as a sign.

Here on SOLO, I have reported personal experiences with mind-reading -- but I keep that to a minimum.

It is pretty easy to pick on Ayn Rand. The fact remains that in my own life I have worked with boards of people and thought of poor Dagny. My wife and I enjoyed our visit to Falling Water last summer.

And no matter what, contradictions do not exist.

Post 7

Monday, April 25, 2005 - 6:58am

Who said Blackwell had it easy - illogical inference, irrational even....

Post 8

Wednesday, April 27, 2005 - 7:12am