Ayn Rand: The Russian Radical (78 page)

1
. Various reviews of
Russian Radical
and author responses are indexed online at
http://www.nyu.edu/projects/sciabarra/rad/randrevus.html
. Chief among these is Sciabarra 1997.

2
. Among these are Bell-Villada 2014, forthcoming; Branden 2009; Burns 2009; Cookinham 2005;
Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism
2012; Gladstein 2010; Gotthelf 2000; Gotthelf and Lennox 2011, 2013; Harriman 2010; Heller 2009; Machan 2000, 2005; Mayhew 2005, 2007, 2009, 2012; Merrill and Enright 2013; McConnell 2010; Peikoff 2012a, 2012b; Sciabarra [1996] 1999, 2003a, 2005a; Smith 2006; Thomas 2005; and Younkins 2007.

3
. The cinematic impact can be measured in dramatizations and documentaries.
Atlas Shrugged
is a three-part cinematic treatment of Rand’s 1957 novel, roughly corresponding to the three parts of the book.
Part I
was released in April 2011, directed by Paul Johansson, produced by John Aglialoro and Harmon Kaslow for The Strike Productions, and distributed by Rocky Mountain Pictures and 20th Century Fox.
Part II
was released in October 2012, directed by John Putch, produced by Harmon Kaslow, John Aglialoro, and Jeff Freilich for Either Or Productions, distributed by Atlas Distribution Company.
Part III
is slated for release on 4 July 2014; it is being produced by John Aglialoro and Harmon Kaslow. Among the documentaries on Rand are
Ayn Rand: A Sense of Life
, a 1997 Oscar-nominated film written, produced, and directed by Michael Paxton and distributed by Strand Releasing (and in which I am listed as a “Research Assistant” for having provided A. G. Media with a very limited amount of material on Rand’s education in Russia, including a photograph of N. O. Lossky that his son Boris authorized for use in the film);
Ayn Rand: In Her Own Words
, a 2011 film produced and directed by John Little and Robert Anderson for Northern River Productions Canada and Entertainment One U.S. LP;
Ayn Rand and the Prophecy of “Atlas Shrugged,”
a 2012 film written, produced and directed by Chris Mortensen for Virgil Films; and
The Birth of Objectivism
, a multivolume series of the Objectivist History Project, produced by the Atlas Society and Duncan Scott Productions, Inc.

4
. While President Obama’s opposition to Rand is well-known, not many people appreciate the inherent opposition between Rand and one of her defenders, GOP 2012 vice-presidential candidate Paul Ryan. I agree with Burns 2012a that Rand would not have approved of the narrow ways in which her work has been appropriated by conservatives like Ryan.

5
. Book synopses, reviews, and ongoing dialogue concerning my work are fully indexed on my Dialectics and Liberty website at
http://www.chrismatthewsciabarra.com
and my Notablog at
http://www.notablog.net
.

6
. Rand (January 1963), “Collectivized ethics,” in Rand 1964a, 81. Rand 1964a is hereafter cited as
Virtue of Selfishness
by page number in both text and notes.

7
. I owe these particular points to Roger E. Bissell.

8
. I would like to extend my gratitude to several individuals who offered commentary on early drafts of this preface and
Appendix III
that I prepared for inclusion in this second expanded edition of
Russian Radical
: Roger E. Bissell, Robert L. Campbell, Stephen Cox, Murray I. Franck, Anne C. Heller, and Elizabeth A. Sciabarra. Of course, I take full responsibility for the final published essays. I also remain eternally indebted to so many others who have made this work possible with their remarkable material generosity and spiritual support, but whose names are too numerous to list even in an expanded acknowledgments section.

INTRODUCTION

1
. Gladstein (1984, 110) lists accessible translations. Among the newest is a Russian translation of several of Rand’s essays and literary excerpts, published in English as
The Morality of Individualism
(Rand 1992).

2
. Rand capitalized “Objectivism,” perhaps to distinguish it from conventional “objectivism” (which Rand characterized as “intrinsicism”). I continue that policy here.

3
.
Library of Congress News
, 20 November 1991, 1.

4
. Rand [1926–38] 1984, [1945] 1986, [1966–67] 1990, 1982, 1991, 1995, 1997, and 2005. Also Baker 1987, B. Branden 1986, and N. Branden 1989. Rand [1926–38] 1984 is hereafter cited as
Early Ayn Rand
by page number in text and notes.

5
. See Binswanger 1980–87, vols. 1–8; Gladstein 1984; and Schwartz 1979–94, vols. 1–8. Binswanger and Schwartz are hereafter cited by volume, issue, and page number in both text and notes. I cite Schwartz for ease of reference. In fact,
The Intellectual Activist
was edited by Schwartz from 1 October 1979 to 3 September 1991, Linda Rearden from November 1991 to May 1994, Robert W. Stubblefield from July 1994 through 2001, and Robert Tracinski, from 2002 to 2004, when he began an online offshoot,
TIA Daily
, which became
The Tracinski Letter.

6
. The following textbooks, used in introductory philosophy and political theory courses, include selections and/or discussions of Rand’s thought: Rachels 1986; Pojman 1990, 1992, and 1994; Bowie, Michaels, and Solomon 1992; Feinberg 1992; and Hoover 1994. Articles on Rand’s thought have appeared in the
American Journal of Economics and Sociology, American Philosophical Quarterly, Aristos, Cognition and Brain Theory, Critical Review, Indian Political Science Review, Journal of Applied Philosophy
,
Journal for the Theory of Social Behavior, Monist, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes
,
Personalist
,
Perspectives in Biology and Medicine
,
Reason Papers, Theory and Decision,
and
The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies,
of which I am a founding co-editor
.

7
. These include the Ayn Rand Institute, founded in 1985, directed by Michael Berliner; the Ayn Rand Society, founded as an affiliate of the Eastern division of the American Philosophical Association in 1989, headed by Allan Gotthelf; and the Institute for Objectivist Studies (now, The Atlas Society), founded in 1990, directed by David Kelley.

8
. The “inner circle” around Rand, playfully called the Collective, included many relatives and friends of Nathaniel Branden (formerly Nathan Blumenthal) and Barbara Branden (formerly Barbara Weidman). Rand and the Brandens shared a Russian Jewish ancestry, as did Nathaniel Branden’s cousins, the Blumenthals, and Barbara Branden’s cousin, Leonard Peikoff. B. Branden 1986, 254; N. Branden 1989, 16, 134.

9
. Rand (May 1968), “To whom it may concern,” in Rand [1966–71] 1982, 453. I cite “Rand [1966–71] 1982” for ease of reference. In fact,
The Objectivist
was edited by Rand and Branden from January 1966 to April 1968, and Rand from May 1968 to September 1971. Rand [1966–71] 1982 is hereafter cited as
Objectivist
by page number in both text and notes.

10
. Peikoff (April 1989), “Foreword to the second edition,” in Rand [1966–67] 1990, 127. Rand [1966–67] 1990 is hereafter cited as
Introduction
by page number in both text and notes.

11
. Rand (June 1968), “A statement of policy,” in
Objectivist
, 471.

12
. Rand (February 1980), “To the readers of
The Objectivist Forum
,” in Binswanger 1.1.1.

13
. Rand parodied the process by which certain philosophic books generate whole industries of scholarship. “Within a few years of the book’s publication,” she wrote, “commentators will begin to fill libraries with works analyzing, ‘clarifying’ and interpreting its mysteries.” These interpretations will differ and contradict one another, but “within a generation, the number of commentaries will have grown to such proportions that the original book will be accepted as a subject of philosophical specialization, requiring a lifetime of study—and any refutation of the book’s theory will be ignored or rejected, if unaccompanied by a full discussion of the theories of all the commentators, a task which no one will be able to undertake.” Rand (29 January–26 February 1973), “An untitled letter,” in Rand 1982, 142–43. Rand 1982 is hereafter cited as
Philosophy
by page number in both text and notes.

14
. Rand (February 1980), “To the readers of
The Objectivist Forum
,” in Binswanger 1.1.2.

15
. W. W. Bartley, “Knowledge is a product not fully known to its producer,” in Leube and Zlabinger 1984, 27.

16
. Ricoeur (1971), “The model of the text,” in Dallmayr and McCarthy 1977, 316–34.

17
. Machan, 16 March 1994C. “C” will be used throughout to indicate correspondence and personal communication.

18
. The ongoing publication in various media of several of Rand’s private papers, journals, and lectures has not occurred without editing. Although the public availability of these papers should be lauded by scholars, it is equally important that they be made available in
unedited
form. For a discussion of Library of Congress efforts to place Rand’s personal papers in a central repository, see Reedstrom 1993b, 8.

19
. This institution was called “Petrograd University” until early 1924. Prior to World War I, it was “St. Petersburg University.” It is now, once again, Saint Petersburg University.

20
. To identify all religious thought with “mysticism” would strike some as odd, especially since mysticism is usually equated with specific esoteric or occult practices signifying a direct contemplative union with a deity. George Kline (18 August 1993C) notes, however, that whereas the Russian thinkers, Solovyov, Frank, and Lossky are indeed mystics, Tolstoy, Shestov, Leontyev, and Rozanov are not, “at least not in the same sense.” Rand ignored these differences. She rejected
all
Russian religious thought as mystical. My use of the terms “mysticism” and “mysticist” reflects Rand’s own, which referred not to esoteric practices or ideas, but to the general
method
by which such practices or ideas were upheld. Rand saw “mysticism” as “the claim to some non-sensory, non-rational, non-definable, non-identifiable means of knowledge, such as ‘instinct,’ ‘intuition,’ ‘revelation,’ or any form of ‘just knowing.’” Rand (17 February 1960), “Faith and force: The destroyers of the modern world,” in
Philosophy
, 75.

21
. Shein 1967, 86. Lossky has also been recognized as the “dean of the emigre philosophers,” one of the leading “philosophers in exile” from the prerevolutionary Russian period who emigrated to the West in the early 1920s. Edie, Scanlan, and Zeldin 1965, 141.

22
. The phrase, “revolt against dualism,” was used by Arthur Oncken Lovejoy (1930). Lovejoy sees this revolt as a rejection of dichotomies, particularly ontological (e.g., mind and body), and epistemological, dualities. I use the phrase in a much wider and more formal sense.

23
. Rand in Peikoff 1976T, Lecture 6.

24
. B. Branden 1986, 311. Hospers (1990), in an intellectual memoir of his conversations with Ayn Rand, writes that “in time I realized that she read almost no philosophy at all. And I was amazed how much philosophy she could generate ‘on her own steam,’ without consulting any sources” (47).

25
. Ollman (1993, 17) notes that many “dialectical” thinkers make such broad generalizations, and often “miss the trees for the forest” by moving too quickly to the bottom
line of an argument and by not giving enough attention to the complex interactions of various factors over time.

26
. Hollinger, “Ayn Rand’s epistemology in historical perspective,” in Den Uyl and Rasmussen 1984, 55. Hollinger notes certain viable similarities between Rand and Dewey, Rorty, Wittgenstein, Gadamer, and other thinkers in the hermeneutic tradition, all of whom can claim to be legitimate heirs of Aristotle’s philosophy.

27
. N. Branden 1989; Kelley 1990, 74.

28
. Peikoff (1983T) criticizes this reification of Rand’s fictional characters, describing it as a “rationalist” fallacy (Lectures 7–9). In
Chapter 8
, I explore the Randian critique of such “rationalism” as a form of dualism.

29
. On Rand’s attitudes toward facial hair as symptomatic of “a spiritual defect,” see B. Branden 1986, 208. Though one might dismiss Rand’s dislike of facial hair as a matter of personal taste, it is interesting to note that the wearing of the beard had deep significance in Russian cultural history. Modeled after the icons of the saints, the wearing of the beard was a traditional practice of Orthodox religious ritual. When Peter the Great ushered in an era of Westernization, he introduced laws against such Orthodox beards. In 1705 Peter imposed taxes and license fees on those who chose to remain unshaven. The cultural battle between the “beards” and the “non-beards” was a battle between the Orthodox-Slavophiles and the Westernizers. Willis 1977, 686; Wallace 1967, 156, 161. Rand’s preference for a clean-shaven appearance may have reflected her general esteem for the Westernizers.

30
. Rand (1 January 1973), “To dream the noncommercial dream,” in Rand (1989), 259. Rand 1989 is hereafter cited as
Voice of Reason
by page number in both text and notes.

31
. Rand 1961, 33. In
The Fountainhead
(Rand [1943] 1993), there are instances in which Rand ridicules dialectical materialism; see pages 292, 554, and 638. Rand [1943] 1993 is hereafter cited as
Fountainhead
by page number in text and notes; Rand 1961, similarly, as
New Intellectual.

32
. Popper ([1940] 1963) criticizes dialectics.

33
. See, for instance, Novack [1969] 1971, 17. Novack unnecessarily polarizes two very compatible philosophical positions. The source for such polarization is Hegel himself, who at times viewed dialectics as both incorporating and transcending the Aristotelian laws of logic. There are passages in Hegel’s writings—see
The Science of Logic,
particularly bk. 2, sec. 1, chap. 2C—in which, for example, motion is described as an “existing contradiction.” Hegel [1812–16] 1929. Engels also employed such terminology in
Dialectics of Nature
([1882] 1940). Thanks to Walsh (19 April 1994C) for this observation. Given such terminological confusion, it is understandable how Rand would have rejected “dialectics” as a repudiation of formal logic. The many usages of “dialectics” are discussed in Thorslev 1971.