Casey,
My point in asking was that on this thread, you have written as though all criticism of Rand is ad hominem.
Yes -- valid criticism of Rand's ideas is one thing, ad hominem is quite another. You're not claiming that ad hominem is a valid form of criticism, are you?
And your response is not a confidence builder. It seems to be saying that anyone who asks the question must believe that criticisms of Rand herself constitute refutations of (some of) her ideas.
To take it a little further, what’s the implication of the choice of title: The Passion of Ayn Rand's Critics?
From my reading of the book, I take the title to mean that what Nathaniel Branden said in his memoir and what Barbara Branden said in her biography are pretty much the only thing that critics of Rand rely on—at least, the critics who are around today (though PARC doesn’t even make that qualification). Therefore, since NB and BB have been wrong about everything that pertains to Ayn Rand, all critics of Ayn Rand’s ideas up to the publication of the book must be wrong, and time need not be wasted on further inquiry.
James,
I appreciate your more measured response:
In Rand criticism there are two things that chap ma hide: attacking the straw-man of a warped reconstruction of Rand's ideas (who could not have been more lucid, in fact); and, substituting reasoned argument against her ideas with an attack on Rand's personal life. These two things are much easier to find, however, than "valid" criticisms.
But we can only gain from a vigorous exchange of ideas with sincere opponents.
Having dealt with warped, unscholarly reconstructions of Rand’s ideas (and warped, unscholarly reconstructions of other people’s ideas—Rand isn’t the only significant thinker to get that kind of treatment), I agree that there are way too many of these.
However, Rand’s mastery of style and her crispness of language don’t always suffice to make her arguments explicit. Think, for instance, about the handful of statements she makes about the connection between rational egoism and respect for individual rights.
Or the cases in which some of the things she says support one interpretation (that the different virtues are means to the overall goal of survival) and others (such as her talk of “man’s life qua man”) suggest that rationality, et al., are constituents of the good life for human beings.
Or her notion of implicit knowledge, which she considered to be important but never got adequately clear about.
I also appreciate your ratification of vigorous exchanges of ideas with sincere opponents.
But there are plenty, in the Randian world, who most definitely do not relish vigorous exchanges of ideas with sincere opponents. In particular, people who are affiliated with the Ayn Rand Institute do not. At least they are not supposed to, and they run the risk of excommunication for appearing in the wrong forum, or referring to the wrong book or article in print.
You’ve explained on this thread that you are not affiliated with ARI. Yet there would have been no Part II of your book had Leonard Peikoff not given his personal blessing to your project. The ARI bookstore that is currently selling your book refuses to sell The Evidence of the Senses by David Kelley (even though no one at ARI has refuted Kelley’s arguments about perception; no one has bothered to demonstrate the mildest deviation therein, from Objectivism as interpreted by Peikoff). Indeed, no one affiliated with ARI can afford to make a favorable public reference to Kelley’s book.
ARI has shown considerable interest in your work, and gone to some trouble to promote it. Since you are not affiliated with ARI, and are in a position to take an outsider’s perspective on it, I assume you won’t mind commenting on the organization’s way of handling both favorable interpretations of Rand’s ideas that have not been given the Peikovian seal of approval, and sincere criticisms of Rand’s ideas by those who have put in the necessary scholarly effort.
Perhaps, too, you may have some thoughts on something that the principals of ARI appear to have in common with irresponsible critics of Rand: an apparent failure to distinguish, in many cases, between judgments about the behavior of individuals and appreciation or criticism of their ideas.
Robert Campbell
(Edited by Robert Campbell on 9/21, 1:03pm)
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