Objectivist Round-up, November 2024

1. Alexandra Popoff, author of the new biography of Ayn Rand, is interviewed here.

2. The Ayn Rand Fan Club interviewed David Kelley on his theory of propositions.

3. The Ayn Rand Institute’s Aaron Smith interviewed Elan Journo concerning his recent reviews of the 2009 biographies of Ayn Rand by Jennifer Burns and Anne Heller.  Journo continues to misrepresent these books.  At the end of the interview, Journo says there is a biography in the works (presumably the authorized one by Shoshan Knapp, which has been promised for at least 20 years).

4. Leonard Peikoff will be voting for Trump

5. Kira Peikoff, Léonard’s daughter, is dropping her conservatorship action.  Her statement reads in part:

In March of 2024, I filed for a Conservatorship over my 91-year-old father, Dr. Leonard Peikoff. I took this action after I lost all communication with him and he deeded title to his house to his nurse and then married her. I was subsequently cut out of his life. I felt I owed it to my father, with whom I had a lifelong loving and close relationship, to protect him. The conservatorship was my only option to reach him and to try to help him after communication closed.

After much thought, I have decided to drop the conservatorship case. Although I still believe I have a strong legal case that is supported by multiple disinterested witnesses (see first comment below), a neutral Court-appointed medical expert, and the presumptions of undue influence under California probate code, my dad has shown himself to be beyond reach as a victim used by his abuser.

Even though many people in our lives can attest that we previously had a close and loving relationship for 38 years, my father has been convinced, under what I believe is the undue influence of his nurse-turned-wife, that I am an evil, greedy person who doesn’t care about him and only wants his money. Nothing could be further from the truth. Even if I were to prevail at trial, so much damage has been done already that it would amount to a Pyrrhic victory.

My father’s love for me has been destroyed, and I no longer believe that any amount of evidence brought to his attention will open his eyes. Also, a conservator’s actions to protect him from financial fraud would take at least another year or two of contentious litigation to reverse the harm that has likely already occurred. If he is not able to understand what should be obvious, that I am trying to protect him, I do not wish to put him through a prolonged legal battle at this stage of his life.

Kira also released a couple of affidavits from people who know Leonard and have first-hand information concerning his relationship with his new wife.  While Leonard may be competent, it’s hard not to conclude that he is being taken advantage of.  For example, his wife’s son appears to be living in the nearly four-million-dollar mansion.  Harry Binswanger sided with Kira saying Peikoff’s wife is a “gold digger.”

Retouching Rand (by Neil Parille)

Back in 2009, I wrote an essay Retouching Rand, which discussed the Ayn Rand Institute’s efforts to create a better Ayn Rand.  These efforts involved fibbing about Rand (for example, Leonard Peikoff’s claim that Rand quit smoking because she concluded it was dangerous, when in fact she quit because she got lung cancer, and James Valliant’s dishonest hit piece, The Passion of Ayn Rand’s Critics).  A lot has happened in the past fifteen years, so it’s time for an update.

Retouching Ayn Rand’s Posthumously Published Material

At the time my essay was published, Jennifer Burns had not published her 2009 autobiography of Rand, Goddess of the Market.  Burns revealed for the first time what was suspected: much of Rand’s posthumously published material was so heavily edited as to be essentially worthless.  As described by Laissez Faire Books at the time:

One other area that I found of significant interest is Burns discussion of the various problems surrounding Rand documents made public by the Ayn Rand Institute, Leonard Peikoff’s organization. There has been a great deal of controversy over indications that ARI doctored documents. Some of this doctoring was admitted by ARI, which asserted that they merely made clarifications consistent with what Rand had intended to say. Burns, who has seen the originals, says this is not the case.

She does say that the letters of Rand, that have been released, “have not been altered; they are merely incomplete.” But the same is not true for other works of Rand, including her Journals Burns writes, “On nearly every page of the published journals an unacknowledged change has been made from Rand’s original writing. In the book’s foreword the editor, David Harriman, defends his practice of eliminating Rand’s words and inserting his own as necessary for greater clarity. In many case, however, his editing serves to significantly alter Rand’s meaning.” She says that sentences are “rewritten to sound stronger and more definite” and that the editing “obscures important shifts and changes in Rand’s thought.” She finds “more alarming” the case that “sentences and proper names present in Rand’s original …have vanished entirely, without any ellipses or brackets to indicate a change.”

The result of this unacknowledged editing is that “they add up to a different Rand. In her original notebooks she is more tentative, historically bounded, and contradictory. The edited diaries have transformed her private space, the hidden realm in which she did her thinking, reaching, and groping, replacing it with a slick manufactured world in which all of her ideas are definite, well formulated, and clear.” She concludes that Rand’s Journals, as released by ARI, “are thus best understood as an interpretation of Rand rather than her own writing. Scholars must use these materials with extreme caution.”

The bad news is that “similar problems plague Ayn Rand Answers (2005), The Art of Fiction (2000), The Art of Non-Fiction (2001), and Objectively Speaking (2009).” Burns says all these works were “derived from archival material but have been significantly rewritten.” Rand scholars have long suspected such manipulation of documents; Burns confirms it with evidence she herself saw.*

As noted above, Journals was edited by David Harriman.  Ayn Rand Answers and The Art of Non -Fiction were edited by Robert Mayhew, Objectively Speaking was edited by Peter Schwart, and The Art of Fiction was edited by Tore Boeckmann.  Harriman is no longer associated with the ARI.  However, Schwartz and Mayhew are.  I’m not sure about Boeckmann.

Objectivist Round-up, October 2024

1. The Ayn Rand Institute’s Elan Journo interviewed Harry Binswanger about Alexandra Popoff’s new biography of Ayn Rand, Ayn Rand: Creating a Gospel of Success.  The biography of Rand is part of Yale University Press’s Jewish Lives series. While I think Popoff goes a little too far in finding Jewish influences on Rand and her works, Binswanger can’t even concede it’s metaphysically possible.  Binswanger thunders: “Rand was not influenced!”  Apparently, it’s all or nothing for Binswanger.  (How this is consistent with the Objectivist view that it’s ultimately a handful of intellectuals who drive the benighted masses is beyond me.)  Binswanger takes a jab at Barbara Branden’s 1986 biography of Rand, The Passion of Ayn Rand.  He doesn’t name Branden but concedes the author knew Rand.  He then takes a jab at the 2009 biographies of Rand by Jennifer Burns and Anne Heller.   They want to describe Rand as crazy (none of them does) and want to find heightened influence on Nietzsche on Rand “because they want to.”  Apparently, no take on Rand other than Binswanger’s can be made in good faith.  At the end of the interview Binswanger takes exception to Popoff’s claim that Rand’s husband Frank was “meek.”  Binswanger gives a couple examples of Frank’s supposed assertiveness.  I don’t think these examples undercut the portrayal of Frank by other biographers.  In any event, since ARI associated writers have contested over the years that Frank consumed alcohol to excess in his sad, final years why doesn’t Binswanger attack Popoff for confirming this (she had complete access to Rand’s archives, a fact never mentioned by Binswanger or Journo)?  Journo asks Binswanger about how Popoff quotes him but doesn’t acknowledge that Popoff corresponded with him.

2. Yaron Brook was asked about David Harriman’s editing of The Journals of Ayn Rand.  There has been controversy about this for a long time, in particular when Jennifer Burns published her 2009 biography of Rand, Goddess of the Market. Burns reported that Harriman rewrote sentences where Rand was tentative to be more emphatic to conform with her later thinking.  Harriman even moved paragraphs around. (Similar editing plagued 5 other posthumous works.) While Brook doesn’t mention Burns or discuss the nature of the changes, he says that while someone could quibble with this or that editing decision, the editing was supervised by Leonard Peikoff and Peikoff approved the work. Brook also says one can always compare the book with the originals, which is untrue. The Archives are open for the most part only to supporters (but see above and below).

Objectivist Round-up, September 2024

1. The first biography of Ayn Rand in fifteen years just came out, Ayn Rand: Writing a Gospel of Success by Alexandra Popoff.  Chris Matthew Sciabarra reviews it.   Popoff is interviewed here.

2. Phil Donahue passed away recently.  He interviewed Rand two times: here and here.

3. The Ayn Rand Archives has enjoyable presentation: Ayn Rand In Film and On Stage.

4. Leonard Peikoff’s daughter Kira is attempting to place him under a conservatorship.  According to Leonard this was prompted by his changing his will, giving half of his estate to his wife and half to Kira. Peikoff said he is unable to pay his legal fees because he had given so much of his estate to Kira that he has little left. After Peikoff’s letter was published, it was discovered that his wife is 28 years younger than him and was his caregiver.  Peikoff and his wife (whom he married two years ago) purchased a $3.7 million dollar home in San Diego.

Neil Parille Revisits Question: Is Objectivism a Religion?

In 2008, I published a blog post, Is Orthodox Objectivism a Religion?  A lot has happened in the last sixteen years – the retirement of Leonard Peikoff, the publication of three biographies of Ayn Rand, several schisms, etc. – so I think it’s time for an update and a potential re-evaluation.  As with my 2008 piece, my discussion of Objectivism is limited to Objectivists associated with the Ayn Rand Institute (ARI) unless otherwise noted.

1. Rand saw herself as something of a secular prophet. In the first edition of Anthem, published in 1936, she wrote, “I have broken the tables of my brothers, and my own tables do I now write with my own spirit.” Rand’s writing is frequently apocalyptic as well. She begins John Galt’s sermon in Atlas Shrugged with an Old Testament-like rebuke of a sinful world facing judgment. “I am the man who loves his life. I am the man who does not sacrifice his love or his values. I am the man who has deprived you of victims and thus has destroyed your world, and if you wish to know why you are perishing—you who dread knowledge—I am the one who will now tell you . . . .”

Nothing much to change here.

Neil Parille Review Latest Rand Biography

Ayn Rand: Writing a Gospel of Success by Alexandra Popoff is the first biography of Ayn Rand since the 2009 biographies of Rand by Anne Heller (Ayn Rand and the World She Made) and Jennifer Burns (Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right).

As readers of the Ayn Rand Contra Human Nature Blog know, the first biography of Rand was Barbara Branden’s biography The Passion of Ayn Rand, which was published in 1986.  Branden’s biography was largely commendatory; however, she first revealed that Rand and Nathaniel Branden had an affair and alleged that this affair led to Rand’s husband Frank O’Connor’s excess consumption of alcohol (which is well documented for his sad, final years but less well documented in the 50s and 60s).  Because Barbara Branden had a falling out with Rand in 1968, Objectivists associated with Rand’s heir Leonard Peikoff were encouraged to dismiss this book out of hand.  Peikoff went so far as to denounce the book (while saying he would never read it) as an “arbitrary assertion.”  This culminated in Peikoff’s friend James Valliant’s 2005 dishonest hit piece, The Passion of Ayn Rand’s Critics, which purported to show that Branden’s biography (and Nathaniel’s memoirs) were lies from beginning to end.

Objectivist Round-up, August 2024

1.  The big news, by far, this month is the publication of a new biography of Ayn Rand in the prestigious Yale University Jewish Lives series by Alexandra Popoff.  It will be published August 6.  Based on a review in the Washington Post and the limited page views on Amazon it seems well worth reading.  It will be the first biography of Rand since Anne Heller’s and Jenniefer Burns’ 2009 biographies.  Popoff was given access to the Ayn Rand Archives and says she admires the Burns and Heller biographies (which largely confirm the accuracy of the Branden accounts).  Her goal, as she says, is to discuss Rand in the context of her Jewish upbringing.  Why was Popoff given access to the Ayn Rand Archives?  Was it because it’s a niche publication published by a prestigious press?  Has the ARI given up on an eventual authorized biography?  Inquiring minds want to know.

2.  Another book about Rand: Ayn Rand and Advaita Hinduism.  I know next to nothing about this branch of Hinduism so at 66 dollars I’ll likely pass.

3. I’ve often considered writing an essay about the Objectivist / Ludwig von Mises take on Nazism.  Fortunately, David Gordon did it for me.