| | Brant (in response to your #178),
I think that Ayn Rand was deficient in a liberal arts education and that huge brain of hers rushed in to fill the void. She ended up with universal prescriptions that betrayed ignorance in psychology, sociology, history and human interactions generally.
We know a fair amount about Rand's education now, because of the work of Chris Sciabarra and others. She actually studied a lot of history, and some social science. Of course, all of this was going on in the Soviet Union, between 1921 and 1924. (For instance, she was almost certainly exposed to some of John Dewey's writings in her courses, so her antipathy to "progressive education" went way back.) To take one field I am close to, just think of the shape that psychology was in, between 1921 and 1924...
I speculate that English as a second language interfered with her ability to read fairly rapidly. If so this was made worse by her penchant of tearing the last ounce of meaning from what she did read. Her incredible work ethic that was writing didn't help in this respect.
Is there any evidence that Rand read English slowly? I read French much more slowly than I read English, and I'm sure I'm not using the same brain centers when I do it. But I write scarcely anything in French, whereas Rand made a career out of writing in English. I also spend very little time speaking French, whereas despite her apparent lack of interest in losing her Russian accent, Rand rarely spoke anything but English, for 55 years of her adult life.
I can see how the commitment she made to her writing interfered with in-depth study of material that she didn't see as immediately necessary for one of her projects or another. This still leaves questions open about her "learning style"...
Both Ayn Rand and Atlas Shrugged need to be constantly deconstructed to find the surplus hidden value and for others to avoid the important mistakes she made. And to properly understand those mistakes she didn't make!
Ayn Rand is made for thinking: a reference point for an important off-key consistency. There is reality and there is Ayn Rand. They don't always mesh well, but she thought they did.
I am very much in agreement with you here. Rand's fiction has multiple levels of meaning, most of which were put there intentionally. The mythic dimensions in her novels help to make them great literature. But they do not provide reliable guidance in dealing with real people in everyday situations. Asking "What would John Galt do?" is frequently not the most productive approach to resolving a moral question.
One of the things Valliant's book allows us to see is Ayn Rand saying things like this:
Originally, [Nathaniel] had said that [Patrecia] was his "Eddie Willers," i.e., an average person who had good premises although she was not at all philosophical or intellectual. Then, he said this estimate of her had changed: that she was an unusual person... (p. 326)
... which looks to me like myth and reality on a collision course.
Robert Campbell
(Edited by Robert Campbell on 7/30, 11:49am)
(Edited by Robert Campbell on 7/30, 1:49pm)
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