Sciabarra wrote: (post 160)
This was a complex tragedy that involved the poor choices and lives of four people directly and, apparently, countless numbers of people indirectly.
Is this one of the “poor choices?”
You have no right to casual friendships, no right to vacations, no right to sex with some inferior woman! Did you imagine that I would consent to be left on the scrap heap? Is that what you imagined? Is it?
Such tirades had become commonplace.
Could a person make the above statements and still be an Objectivist? Even a mere libertarian would shrink from such a claim of possession directed at another human being. Not only does it demonstrate an intolerable right to possess another, but shows a lack of self-esteem---an other-directed life, that is left “on the scrap heap” once abandoned.
Nathaniel Branden wrote that Ayn Rand said the above, in Judgment Day. (page 373). He also inferred that Rand was possibly insane (p. 372) and irrational (p. 349). What aspect of Rand’s Objectivism did Branden leave in tact? This was not an idle comment made about an unimportant subject, but the comment, per Branden, that Rand repeatedly made about her most important value.
Branden is not describing some minor faux pas, or a temporary aberration, but statements that imply Rand’s absolute rejection of virtually every principle of Objectivism. Branden makes it clear that this wasn’t a single tirade, that however wrong, might be excused as not representative of her thinking. This was “commonplace” he wrote.
If Branden was telling the truth, Rand was worse than a hypocrite. The above period described by Branden, was at about the same time that Introduction to Objectivist Epistomology was published. If we believe Branden, then IOE was a fiction and Rand’s life a fraud.
IS THIS A MERE POOR CHOICE?:
To call this conflict “a poor choice” is evasion and denial. Branden’s characterization of Rand, can not be attributed to a “lover’s quarrel” or a simple sexual infidelity. If it was truly “all about sex” I wouldn’t care.
Many people are Objectivists in spite of Branden, in spite of Judgment Day. Of course a philosophy is not dependant on the personal life of the philosopher. I assume every Solo-ist would agree----an Objectivist understands that point. However, an expressed goal of Solo is “a war for men’s minds.” Branden placed a deceitful obstacle in the path of this war for men’s minds, as did Barbara Branden’s book and movie. A philosophy that can’t be lived even by it’s originator is a hard sell, for the same reason that a book, “Poems by Hitler” would not sell, no matter the merit of the poems.
PARC exposes Branden’s lies and uses Rand’s own Journal entries to do so. I think Valliant makes excellent points. But for those who don’t want to trust Valliant, then just read what Rand wrote and determine for yourself whether anything Branden said about Rand could be trusted unless independently corroborated. Rand’s journal entries prove she was living according to her philosophy.
Judgment Day was not a “poor choice.” It was a lie. It was a lie that not only demeaned Rand, but demeaned her about subjects that go to the very core of Rand’s philosophy. It is not a god damned footnote!
| 
