From: kumara@well.sf.ca.us (Robert Kovsky)
Subject: Fuel for the Ayn Rand flame war
Organization: Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1993 01:08:42 GMT


	I have followed the Ayn Rand flame war on this conference with some
interest, because I was very fond of Ms. Rand's work when I was a teenager.
Basically, Ms. Rand created a context in which real work seemed to be filled
with drama and adventure.  Especially the kind of work --  engineering --
that was then the focus of my life.  Moreover, Ms. Rand and I shared a
repugnance for many unsavory aspects of life, including social-babble and
psycho-babble and other disguised means of manipulation and self-
manipulation.

	Reading the present flame war awoke my slumbering interest in Ayn
Rand and I am currently re-reading <Atlas Shrugged>.  It's still good fun.
She was an excellent wordsmith and storyteller.Such sympathies do not cloud
my cool judgment about the validity of Ms. Rand's ideas.  Frankly, I don't
think she's a philosopher, because philosophy requires critical analysis of
ideas and critical analysis is not one of Ms. Rand's skills.  She is,
rather, a propagandist for a certain view of life.  Moreover, her view of
life is not, in my opinion, one that is desireable.

	One approach is to look at her characters.  The most interesting and
engaging of her characters are involved in internal, dramatic conflicts that
cause them, in Ms. Rand's words, to "examine their premises."   Gail Wynand
in <The Fountainhead> has allowed his integrity to be corrupted by an
addiction to power and is forced to recognize that a man without integrity
is, indeed, powerless.  Dagny Taggart in <Atlas Shrugged> must recognize
that the values once embodied in the railroad that is the center of her life
have been betrayed and that she must choose between the values and the
railroad.  These characters have a real human sense, because they are caught
up in these internal, dramatic conflicts.  The "ideal" characters, Howard
Roark and John Galt, however, are not real because they do not themselves
have any conflicts within themselves.  The only drama associated with them
is the "drama" of their struggle with evil.  They are boring in the same way
that "Superman" is boring.  Moreover, the "evil" is a silly caricature, not
"real evil".

	The "ideal" characters do not really constitute an ideal because
they offer no <guidance by example>.  All they do is preach "the word",
perform magic (their creative legerdermain), and triumph.

	Another approach, admittedly ad hominem (and thus much more
entertaining), is to read the "memoirs" of Nathaniel Branden and Barbara
Branden about the real, personal life of Ms. Rand and the inner workings of
her circle.  Nathaniel Branden was the lover of Ayn Rand and her heir
apparent before his attachment to another woman caused Ms. Rand to
anathemize him.  Barbara was married to Nathaniel throughout the period and
witnessed his shenanigans, as well as the private life of Ms. Rand and her
husband.  The sexual side of this story is full of lurid melodrama.  There
are telling analyses of the "Ayn Rand cult."  But even more interesting is
the peculiar interaction between Ms. Rand's physical appearance and her
work.

	Now, Ayn Rand's physique was, more or less, "short and stocky."  I
don't say this disparagingly.  She, of course, had not choice.  I myself
belong, more or less, to this category, and, while it's not fashionable,
it's ok.  Actually, us Russian Jews have exceedingly strong constitutions
that enable us to survive famines and work intensively.  (Ms. Rand, if
memory serves, was born Alice Rosenbaum in St. Petersburg and Nathaniel
Branden was born Nathan Blumenthal.  Indeed, the majority of the Ayn Rand
inner circle were extracted from Russian Jews, something worthy of
examination.)   But it is very striking that all of Ms. Rand's heroic
characters are of the long, lean variety.  It is almost as if a long, lean
look were indispensable to virtue.   This is very curious.

	According to the Brandens, Ms. Rand was a regular user of
amphetamines in the form of "diet pills".  These drugs curb the appetite and
aid in the maintenance of a "slender" appearance.  They are also addicting
and affect the personality.  Habitual users become paranoid.   The portraits
of Ms. Rand drawn by the Brandens show a person with extreme mood swings,
repressed rage, and a capacity for intense self-justification.  I do not
believe that these portraits are distorted and would suggest that anyone
heavily invested in Ayn Rand read the Brandens' books.

	In sum, Ms. Rand was a very different person from the "ideal types"
she created.  Yet, in the books that extol her, she is presented as an
exemplar.

	In retrospect, one of the attractions of Ms. Rand's books for me
(but, of course, not the only attraction) was that they enabled me to
construct and maintain an image of myself that compensated for my felt
deficiencies.  As I have become indifferent toward these "deficiencies,"
this former attraction simply seems unfortunate.   And I now delight in the
ambiguities and complexities that aroused anxiety in me when I was younger.

	I look forward with eager anticipation to having my present
deficiencies subjected to critical analysis.



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