is it true that Rand forbade her associates to read certain things?

I think Kate and Ted are the same person.

Post 21

Saturday, January 16, 2010 - 11:27am

Even their pictures look strikingly similar.

Post 22

Saturday, January 16, 2010 - 11:42am

Hah! I was thinking the exact same thing about you this morning, Ed. And I think your accusation, meant to throw people off, is proof.

Post 23

Saturday, January 16, 2010 - 11:43am

I agree with Steve and Mike. Here's an attempt to answer.

Kate,

There is a general hostility in Objectivist circles toward those who "fraternize with the enemy." In the most benign cases, it's seen as a waste of time; worse cases, legitimizing the enemy; and more heinous cases, condoning or allowing unreality. It goes from "we know their wrong, so why bother," to "interacting with them just breathes life into their garbage," to "by even interacting with them, you entertain the possibility that what they say is true, which is to entertain the possibility of a contradiction, unreality."

Examples:

1. Rand didn't bother reading John Rawls, apparently viewing such endeavor as a waste of time. (See her The Untitled Letter in Philosophy: Who Needs It.)

2. David Kelley was attacked (not by Rand, AFAIK) for his interaction with non-Objectivists. This mingling eventually helped lead to his ouster, the "second schism."

3. I don't recall the source (maybe David Kelley?), but I do recall an anecdote where Rand condemned some scientists as embracing unreality for their investigations into claims of the paranormal or parapscyhological.

All that said, I know of no instance where Rand explicitly forbade her associates from reading certain authors, but I wouldn't be surprised if she did. In his The Ideas of Ayn Rand, Ronald Merrill, accounts firsthand::

Once [Rand] accepted the desirability of an Objectivist movement, she did not hesitate to go all the way with the implications thereof. A movement must know who is part of it and who is not. There must be a party line. There must be a mechanism to prevent corruption of the party line. There must be enforcement procedures to prevent schisms, by crushing dissent before it can become strong enough to threaten the unity of the movement. Rand understood all this, and did not shrink from it.

Pg. 152.

and:

. . .Rand's implementation of her enforcement procedures was crude, inefficient, and often cruel.

Pg. 152.

and:

People -- even very intelligent people -- tolerated being insulted, intimidated, and bullied by Ayn Rand.

pgs 153.

Please, Kate, do keep in mind that this speaks to a culture that Rand appears to have engendered. It does not necessarily speak to the veracity of her ideas.
.
Jordan

(Edited by Jordan on 1/16, 11:56am)

Post 24

Saturday, January 16, 2010 - 11:48am

And you wanted to know when the follow up question, "on whom did Ayn Rand force abortions," would come up?

Post 25

Saturday, January 16, 2010 - 1:43pm

Michael,

Would you be surprised to learn that putting words into others mouths is distasteful to them?

Yes, it would be extremely out of character for Rand to tell anyone not to read a book. She would be interested in hear why someone read a book or what they thought of it. And in character to judge their thoughts... but to imply that she was about censoring people's reading habits is absurd.

Kate did not ask a simple question or a valid question - not when she has phrased questions like that again and again and again. Why it doesn't strike a nerve with more people would be a valid question.

And, Michael, your little example of a web site that alleges Rand used profanity... Does the existence of a claim on some random web site now stand as evidence of the validity of the claim?

Post 26

Saturday, January 16, 2010 - 1:54pm

Jordan, you provided opinions of Merrill NOT Rand. And her drive, according to Merrill, was to protect Objectivism from acquiring meanings that were wrong (like Libertarianism has done - given that it happily hosts anarchists and socialists).

Nothing in Rand's drive included censoring the reading habits of others. I have no doubt at all that I could have told her I was reading the bible and she would only have been interested in why and what I thought. And that it would never have entered her mind to tell me not to.

Post 27

Sunday, January 17, 2010 - 10:12am

The quotes I provided were of course Merrill's. His account leaves us with generalities to the sound of "enforcement procedures," and people getting "insulted, intimidated, and bullied" by Rand. I suppose we could bug the Brandens or Peikoff (or whoever else is still living who was once closely associated with Rand) to learn whether she ever went a book banning, but that prospect fails to thrill me.

Jordan

Post 28

Sunday, January 17, 2010 - 11:13am

I still want to know where this notion comes from. Was it the Objectivist who thinks people who wear eyeglasses are subhuman? Here's Kate on another thread:

Very, very few people will correctly identify the author as Adolf Hitler. (All three quotes come from MEIN KAMPF.)
. . .

"...ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country."

(Yes -- JFK or his speechwriter correctly gambled that most Americans would not recognize whom the President was quoting, and would therefore not recognize it as a quote.)

It is because of her habitually posting things like this that I demanded an immediate source above. The "question" was raised without evidence. It amounts to a smear, and has now amounted to a license for a fishing expedition, which Jordan has joined and which Michael is in favor of on principle. It's odd that I have to point out it's not an Objectivist principle.

Post 29

Sunday, January 17, 2010 - 4:31pm

Ted,

It isn't strange to me. In an earlier post I said, "Kate did not ask a simple question or a valid question - not when she has phrased questions like that again and again and again. Why it doesn't strike a nerve with more people would be a valid question."

I'm just surprised it isn't strange to more people.

Post 30

Sunday, January 17, 2010 - 4:35pm

Re:

I think Kate and Ted are the same person.

We're not.

Post 31

Sunday, January 17, 2010 - 4:36pm

I'm not Ed, either.

Sunday, January 17, 2010 - 4:37pm

Re:

Was it the Objectivist who thinks people who wear eyeglasses are subhuman?

No -- and the anti-eyeglass person isn't an Objectivist any more.

Post 33

Sunday, January 17, 2010 - 4:48pm

She never was.

Sunday, January 17, 2010 - 5:40pm

Michael --

I suspect that your classmate got the "f-ck" verbiage (incorrectly attributed to Rand) from the horrendous song "I Hate Ayn Rand" by a group called Gather -- quoted here .
(Edited by Kate Gladstone on 1/17, 5:43pm)

Post 35

Sunday, January 17, 2010 - 5:42pm

And what would you advise me particularly to look for, Luke, when reading the Peikoff work you recommended?

Post 36

Sunday, January 17, 2010 - 6:40pm

Jordan writes:

I don't recall the source (maybe David Kelley?), but I do recall an anecdote where Rand condemned some scientists as embracing unreality for their investigations into claims of the paranormal or parapscyhological.

The probable source is Nathaniel Branden's article "The Benefits and Hazards of the Philosophy of Ayn Rand" -- specifically, the paragraph beginning with the words "Like many other people, ... "

Post 37

Sunday, January 17, 2010 - 6:46pm

From "From the Horse's Mouth":

"There was a story in the press that during the first test of an atom bomb in New Mexico, Robert Oppenheimer...carried a four-leaf clover in his pocket. More recently, there was the story of Edgar Mitchell, an astronaut who conducted ESP experiments on his way to the moon. There was the story of a space scientist who is a believer in occultism and black magic.

"Such is the 'honorable and enduring peace' between knowledge and faith, achieved by the Kantian philosophy."

Post 38

Sunday, January 17, 2010 - 7:36pm

NB writes:

"Like many other people, she was enormously opposed to any consideration of the possible validity of telepathy, ESP, or other psi phenomenon. The evidence that was accumulating to suggest that there was something here at least worthy of serious scientific study did not interest her; she did not feel any obligation to look into the subject; she was convinced it was all a fraud. It did not fit her model of reality. When an astronaut attempted during a flight to the moon to conduct a telepathic experiment, she commented on the effort with scorn�even the attempt to explore the subject was contemptible in her opinion. Now I have no wish to argue, in this context, for or against the reality of nonordinary forms of awareness or any other related phenomenon. That is not my point. My point is the extent to which she had a closed mind on the subject, with no interest in discovering for herself why so many distinguished scientists had become convinced that such matters are eminently worthy of study."

This is so self-serving and simply silly that it's laughable. Rand was how old, at this point? Sixty? The proof is in the pudding. If psychic powers exist, people will use them to make money. (Unless, that is, acting in one's own monetary self-interest contravenes the rules of the spiritual realm?) The fact that she would waste none of her time on this nonsense is the minimum one would expect of Rand, or any sane adult. And that Branden would take this as an example of "closed-mindedness" speaks volumes about his scientific and philosophical sophistication. These claims are arbitrary. Really, if an astronaut were to pray, would Branden have expected her to take an "objective" interest in that too?

The world is full of magicians and con-men but not one single shred of evidence for psychic ability. Not one shred. Even in the 1940's enough was known about how the nervous system works physiochemically to show that there is no imaginable mechanism for psychic ability, not to mention that all claims for it are arbitrary. Did Branden not take any classes in biology? Does he imagine the existence of unknown cells with unknown properties that make use of some force other than the four fundamental forces of physics? Of course not. He offers nothing but the an astronaut's speculation. Other than the fact that the astronaut is famous, what makes his interest relevant? What a crock.

(Edited by Ted Keer on 1/17, 7:52pm)

Post 39

Sunday, January 17, 2010 - 10:22pm