The Argument from Intimidation

Robert Bidinotto:

Second, I realize that Lindsay Perigo wishes to jump on his anti-TOC hobby horse at every opportunity. In this case (post #19), he continues an obnoxious habit of attributing to TOC any view I happen to express, or attributing to me any view expressed by anyone associated with TOC.

Oh rubbish, Sir Robert. You menstruating or something? I can't speak for David Kelley, obviously, but I ask the question: would there be TOC without Barbara's book? David and his colleagues complained at the time, rightly, that ARI had adopted a head-in-the-sand attitude to the book and the questions it raised. One's position on the book became like a loyalty test, with folk thrown out, like David, if they praised it or suggested, as he did, that it raised matters that should be aired. Unconscionable behaviour by ARI, to be sure. But then along comes Valliant, who airs these matters in a way that shows Rand not to be the way the Brandens portrayed her, with Rand's own journal entries offered as corroborating evidence. What do we hear from the very people who said the Brandens' accounts should be debated? Nothing! Except from you, who condemned Valliant as a "parasite" before even reading his book!

Robert, as you know I was one of those who said, sight unseen, that the Valliant book had to be a waste of space and that we all had better things to do than rake over such old coals. I urged Barbara herself not to go on fretting about it the way she was. Then I read the damn thing. I strongly urge you to do the same, for reasons I gave in my review of it. It's no good saying Rand's achievements speak for themselves. Given that she espoused a philosophy to live by, if she didn't live by it, she was a fraud. Living by it has to be among her achievements if we are to take it, and her, seriously. The Brandens' accounts suggest that in several important respects, she failed; Valliant's suggests strongly that she didn't. Everyone wishing to be informed about Objectivist history should make himself familiar with it. Some of that history has unfolded before our eyes right here on SOLOHQ.

Linz

PS�The forthcoming Free Radical will feature an exclusive article by Casey Fahy, The Silence of Ayn Rand's Critics.

Post 41

Thursday, October 27, 2005 - 9:52pm

So numerous are the misrepresentations of my book and its context in Bidinotto's tome that I shall be content to name one, and leave this "pissing contest" to others. I never claim that O'Connor was or was not an alcoholic -- much less do I claim or confuse certainty on this point with the evidence from Rand's journals.

Mr. Bidinotto, like Ms. Branden, seems to want as much of the evidence suppressed on matters for which the Brandens are our only witnesses as possible -- extending even to short-stories Rand read to classes and showed others in her lifetime, as those published in 'The Early Ayn Rand.'

When Rand read the story "Good Copy," for example, to a class on fiction writing, without revealing its authorship, Ms Branden was not among those who are reported to have quickly perceived it as Rand's work. She was apparently indignant that it did not deal with any "big" or philosophical issue. Rand is reported to have replied, in effect, that it dealt with only one "big" issue: whether "man can live on earth or not," i.e., it's sense of life. The publication of this story and the story of Rand reading it to others, and the misunderstanding of Rand's sense of life by Ms. Branden that it reveals, may all be embarrassing to Ms. Branden, but why, pray tell, do you find it an embarrassment, Mr Bidinotto?

Now, who was talking about an institutional "policy of secrecy"?

Which is it: mad profiteering or suppression? Or, let me guess, a carefully crafted combo?

(Edited by James S. Valliant
on 10/27, 10:00pm)

Post 42

Thursday, October 27, 2005 - 10:26pm

I have a real hard time trying to understand what people mean by living according to a philosophy.

It seems that in one context, they mean absolute perfection without even the hint of a conflict, and in another, a chosen set of hierarchical principles to guide an individual's understanding of the world and his/her choices.

So just for the record, I ALWAYS use "living by a philosophy" to mean the second one. And in that sense, the impression I got from both Barbara's book and Nathaniel's book was that Rand lived by her own philosophy. I do not see where they show that she did not.

The Brandens point to some difficult struggles which make those who use the first "perfect" definition of living by a philosophy extremely uncomfortable. Thus they deny that such struggles are part of the experience of being human.

Different metaphysics on what man is, thus what he ought to be.

Michael

Post 43

Thursday, October 27, 2005 - 10:47pm

James runs away from Robert, but Robert--hasn't read James's book? Reading the book should by now be the price of admission.

--Brant

Post 44

Thursday, October 27, 2005 - 11:23pm

For commenting about it reading it should be the price of admission, Brant.

Post 45

Friday, October 28, 2005 - 12:16am

Doesn't anybody on this thread have something they'd rather be doing, myself including?

Post 46

Friday, October 28, 2005 - 6:53am

Linz said:

PS�The forthcoming Free Radical will feature an exclusive article by Casey Fahy, The Silence of Ayn Rand's Critics.

Linz,
Please have your staff cancel my subscription; no refund is expected.

Post 47

Friday, October 28, 2005 - 8:09am

Forgive me, but Mr. Bidinotto seems to be doing the "running" -- away from his first published reaction to me, personally, and to the new evidence.

Now, MSK, where did I mention "perfection" at all in the book? And, how and when did I buy into your false dichotomy about it?

Post 48

Friday, October 28, 2005 - 9:12am

Cancelled my post: None of my business anyway.
I have more fun in the kitchen ;-).

(Edited by Ciro D'Agostino on 10/28, 10:08am)

Post 49

Friday, October 28, 2005 - 9:32am

If anyone wishes to see the term "exercise in futility" defined ostensively, just try tracking the responses to my posts against what I actually wrote. Good luck.

Done here.

Post 50

Friday, October 28, 2005 - 9:43am

"Running" has certainly just been defined that way.

Post 51

Friday, October 28, 2005 - 11:24am

Robert Bidinotto's very detailed post [#38] covers a lot of issues very carefully and very logically. I don't usually have patience for long-winded Soloists, but his post helps untangle a number of issues that people have been at swords points about.

> So numerous are the misrepresentations of my book and its context in Bidinotto's tome [James V]

I can't judge issues related to -your- book, but his post was not focused on it but on wider issues related to rules of evidence and the whole debate over things that happened decades ago. His focus was primarily epistemological.

> Mr. Bidinotto, like Ms. Branden, seems to want [much] of the evidence suppressed ...

Maybe I missed it, but where did he say that?

James I think you and Lindsay should get out of dismiss-everything-an-opponent-says mode and reread Bidinotto's post in its entirety. It makes a wide range of points on how to judge something complex like this.

Some of them you might even agree with it if you don't focus on zeroing in on one aspect (too harsh or too benign evaluation of particular people such as AR, NB, and BB).

The key things everyone should be thinking about are NOT the gossip column personal issues that all of you get way too sidetracked and burn up years of your life on, making enemies over, etc.

(Yes I know that Ayn Rand is important as is her stature, but don't you see that you guys are coming at this issue from too narrow a focus?)

Word of advice to everyone in the Objectivist movement, and not just on this beaten-to-death thread:

Learn to focus on the intellectual primarily and a lot less on the personal, either in the lives of your heroes or villains.... or in your own exchanges with people in the same movement.

Write a book on history or epistemology or do something else, for fuck's sake.

Philip Coates

Post 52

Friday, October 28, 2005 - 10:37am

Well, Robert, I assume we are talking about PARC here. (These recent posts are actually a continuation of another thread.) I think you did a good job of dealing with the second half of PARC, but the first half was written before Valliant was granted access to Rand's journals. I think the first part of PARC is actually very weak, but no one, including me, has yet to adequately address it from the perspective of its thesis. (If Chris Sciabarra did, I forgot.) I would like to say, again, that AR's journals and writings from 1968 have to be her on her best behavior. I know I am when I write things to myself. That is, we cannot know from that material the actual day by day living, breathing context of the principals. (Without the Brandens' accounts, especially Barbara's, we know very, very little of that.) I think that that may have been one of your points, in part. As for Valliant's book as such, I hardly think any better of it as when I started animadverting upon it last May, but if he hadn't written it I would probably have gone to my grave thinking Frank O'Connor was an alcoholic, if not an object of pity. I think BB came to her conclusion mistakenly. All I did was look at the available evidence and conclude it hadn't been proved or seriously demonstrated--that even if he spent his last years as a drunk--again, no good evidence yet presented--his old age dementia absolutely trumped any drinking. Valliant and his cohorts have not embraced my reasoning--sticking with their original analysis which I seriously question (aside from the fact that neither of the Brandens have claimed to be actual witnesses). I suspect they might want to question his dementia, too. But all they have to do is ask Leonard Peikoff, who should have a lot of information on the drinking and the dementia. I suspect that LP has been or would be less than forthcoming, even to James Valliant. Again, I think that that kind of criticism of LP's attitude is the core of your lengthy post and I think you are correct. Until you deal with PARC as a whole, however, you have not done a book review. I have yet to see that it is not necessary.

--Brant

Post 53

Friday, October 28, 2005 - 10:39am

Ciro, are you into food fights? Certainly healthier than pissing contests.

--Brant

Post 54

Friday, October 28, 2005 - 1:52pm

Phil,

Bidinotto suspects that Peikoff has selectively suppressed Rand material (although the very history of my own project tends, in my view, to suggest otherwise), and, yet, his own position seems to favor the suppression of all of the unpublished Rand material. Added to this irony is his accusation that my book is the product of monetary greed (without knowing me or, perhaps, realizing that Peikoff and the Rand estate are getting zero deniro from it.)

I clearly do not confuse the state of the evidence of O'Connor's drinking with the matters demonstrated by Rand's notes, as he so casually, and without a micron of demonstration, alleges.

He appears to have no response to any of this.

Brant,

O'Connor's mental condition is discussed in my book.

Post 55

Friday, October 28, 2005 - 2:48pm

This thread has wandered a long way off the original topic--a situation for which I am partly responsible.

I've started a new thread to discuss whether lying to protect one's privacy is OK. See "Privacy Lies."

Robert Campbell

Post 56

Friday, October 28, 2005 - 3:04pm

James, I assume you mean p. 144.

--Brant

Post 57

Friday, October 28, 2005 - 7:02pm

> his own position seems to favor the suppression of all of the unpublished Rand material. [James V]

Material Rand didn't want published = ALL unpublished Rand material?

> Peikoff and the Rand estate are getting zero *deniro*

I think you mean dinero: wrong Robert :-) :-)

Post 58

Friday, October 28, 2005 - 7:13pm

Brant,

Two paragraphs on p. 144 are the only passages in Mr. Valliant's book that refer to Frank O'Connor's dementia. He follows the presentation in Barbara Branden's book (including the diagnosis of arteriosclerosis) and adds nothing to what she had already said there.

Mr. Valliant's question about how dementia might be mistaken for alcoholism is a reasonable one. But he doesn't even ask when Frank O'Connor's dementia began.

Robert Campbell

(Edited by Robert Campbell on 10/28, 7:25pm)

Post 59

Friday, October 28, 2005 - 8:07pm