Does anyone have an opinion of the very recent Ayn Rand biography, Goddess of the Market, by Jennifer Burns? I just finished reading it earlier today. It seems extensively researched and very scholarly. Unfortunately it's written by an opponent who, in turn, doesn't genuinely understand Objectivism. Still, getting to revisit Ayn Rand's truly heroic life -- and watching her revolutionary and ingenious thought develop -- was thrilling.

What makes her an opponent?

Notwithstanding her extreme familiarity with the conservative, libertarian, and Objectivist movements since the 1930s, Professor Burns seems to be a standard-issue leftist academic.

I don't quite understand why I should he tempted to read this. The title is off-putting, and you say the author is writing about Ayn Rand but doesn't understand Objectivism. What am I missing? Just watch Ayn Rand: A Sense of Life. Guarranteed to be more accurate and more inspiring because you get the story from people who knew her and understood her.

Jennifer Burns was on The Daily Show on Comedy Central yesterday and you can get a good idea about her and her book by watching this video.

Oh dear.

Couldn't help but notice that the host most certainly didn't read the book, from the way he claimed he did

Actually, I came away thinking that Stewart understood Ayn Rand's work more than the "PhD" Burns did. Not that he isn't part nihilist though.

Oh, I'm sure he understands it well, since he is making his career out of being a Toohey or a tool to a Toohey.

But he refers to "all this dirty sex" which I find rather strange, since the FH has maybe a page out of 700 and AS a couple of scenes out of 1,300 pages which could fit the bill. Any book written today will likely have dozens of pages dedicated to the matter, and in a much more graphic manner; I even remember reading as a teenager those special forces popular fiction books, and THAT had its fair amount. Let's not even begin with either the chick lit or the "artistic" crap that this guy's audience probably reads on a regular basis.

However, this was shocking to the public back when the FH came out; as such, I do feel that he's only read the mid-20th century reviews and deduced his conclusions from them.

I disagree re:comprehension. I got from this that Burns is making a career for herself. She sounds smart and cynical.

Burns may be cynical, but is hers a sophisticated cynicism? or the garden-variety cynicism of the mediocrity? I didn't get the sense that she even understands philosophy, Objectivism, or Ayn Rand's influence. In two instances on the clip, she confesses as much. Then again, she could be lying to cover her moral tracks. She flatly and wholly attributes Ayn Rand's purpose and achievements to her early life in communist Russia. This is an amateurish denial of free-will and ability.

Stewart, on the other hand, recognized that Ayn Rand was an "extraordinary person" and, true to his egalitarianism, posited that Objectivism could only work for extraordinary people. This is a valid point for a first-time reader to make.

It's about time these naysayers gave up though. The whole I-hate-Ayn-Rand ship has sunk. Objectivism is like nothing you have ever encountered. Deal with it.

Mercury - I mean philosophically cynical, in that she thinks she can make a faster buck by following Toohey's footsteps. It's hard to be taken seriously when you're a social sciences academic - this will give her fame and some degree of a following, and of course revenue from book sales. Would another Objectivist book have sold as well? Other than Ayn Rand's works, how many books do ARI writers sell vs. say Obama's "life story"?

Stewart may say so, but I wholeheartedly disagree. When I first read the Fountainhead it gave me extraordinary hope, because for me the message was not "if you are a hero you will succeed" (i.e. Roark is somehow special) but "success is resilience and refusing to compromise, and it is moral and leads to happiness". This was really the first instance of somebody telling me that great people are not great because they are born that way, but because they made themselves great. I may not be as smart as the guys getting scholarships to MIT and Stanford, but I have plenty of willpower. Stewart's message is akin to Moore's in his recent disgusting film when he claims capitalism is about preserving an elite on top and an exploited working class at the bottom, with no possibility of movement upwards.

Unfortunately Burns is right in one aspect - the Ayn Rand popularity cycles. Until a Republican President like Reagan has the moral courage and integrity to cut statism, all we'll see is cycles of two flavours of statism, one cycle with Republicans screaming for the Socialist's head, the other with Ayn Rand quietly put on the top shelf of the library until the next Democrat wins. I would LOVE to be proven wrong.

Also, the part of the FH that gave me, personally, as a non-high flyer (at least not academically), hope was Keating, ironically. Keating "could" have become a great painter. The message I got out of this is that everyone, not just Roark, has a talent or passion lying latent to be discovered. I didn't need more than this brief description of Keating's lost talent.

There is no other kind of cynicism, rtg24. When I wrote "cynical," I meant philosophically cynical.

She may be out for money, and has obviously benefited from her smears; but I suspect her lack of knowledge will come into play at some point. What will happen when her errors, already documented on at least one blog, are made public? I mean, calling Ayn Rand a "conservative"? That is old hat.



I, too, disagree. I took some of what you did from The Fountainhead. But, you can't assume your own psychology is the general case.

For instance, consider your interpretation of Roark's struggle as "success is resilience and refusing to compromise, and it is moral and leads to happiness." I grew up under military dictatorships (with brief civilian interregnums) during which many principled activists (journalists, lawyers, writers) were either assassinated, impoverished, or hanged. Even though they became societal heroes, they were sacrificed. They had a vision of society; yet, they died in the arms of their dreams. Given that reality, how does one explain Roark's success? Now, I'm not saying I don't know the answer to that question. I'm just trying to point out that these answers aren't obvious to many people. Notice that conscientious study of Objectivism is a sign of some specialness in the student.

I agree that Stewart's message is akin to Moore's. They are both egalitarians. Which is why idealistic slogans like "healthcare for all" appeal to them. Only Objectivism can counter this: "Individual rights are inalienable." The egalitarian's problem is coming to terms with the "extraordinary" individual.



Reagan did some good things, but we are yet to see a real champion of capitalism (Objectivist or not) in the Oval Office. In my opinion, we are not likely to see one until the Left-indoctrinated students at, say, Berkeley are no longer the elite. There are many old and established altruist ideals, practices, and institutions which will have to be discredited or destroyed before a capitalist world emerges.

Nothing. Her audience is the kind that doesn't bother digging. This is how the socialists are still popular.


Is the answer to run away from that country?


Immediately, I thought of Milken's heroic work towards destroying the management elites (for which he was thanked with jail and a ban on his own profession).

But how can the educational and political elites be destroyed?

My impression was that her treatment of Ayn Rand was more honest than most, but her commentary still offers no value to anyone who actually understands Objectivism. Coming from a collectivist world-view, I can understand why Burns saw Ayn Rand as being a reactionary against Communism, and as being a member of the right, since she can only see groups, not individuals. I did like when she said Objectivism was about being the hero of your own life, which is why I say she seemed more honest than other leftists in her research. But I'll repeat what I said above, that if you really want to know more about Miss Rand and be inspired by her life, watch A Sense of Life, or whatever else has been put out there featuring information from people who knew her personally and understood her philosophy.

But, what if there's no freer country to run to? The answer would ultimately depend on the context. But, broadly speaking, I would say leaving the country. Fighting a dictatorship, once established, is the worst possible political situation. Even if some opposition to the regime were formed abroad, there would still have to be "foot-soldiers" within the country willing to fight, and many will, of necessity, die fighting.



The essence of any cultural battle is philosophical. If America becomes a dictatorship before the educational tables turn (i.e., Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology and The Objectivist Ethics being compulsory first- and second-level courses at all the major universities), then we will very likely have to turn to violence. But, this is a worst-case scenario. I hope it won't come to that.

For me, a large part of the pleasure of this book was tracing out Ayn Rand's marvelous, fascinating life, step-by-step, from a fresh perspective which is, at least, internally consistent.

But if that isn't enough, or someone thinks they already have her bio down cold, it's fun and interesting to watch her form her ideas, also set-by-step, and see when they came into play during what fictional work, and in regard to what historical event, or in response to which personal and/or intellectual influence. It didn't happen by magic; it was often a hard slog; and it's truly thought-provoking and inspirational to watch the lunar rocket soar.

I agree, and whilst France is no dictatorship, I look forward to having a blue passport, or at least a green card...

There can't not be free countries to run to!


1. I think this needs to be done privately. I have turned to explaining Objectivism without mentioning the key words (Objectivism, Ayn Rand, Atlas, Roark, etc.). Once I have thoroughly beaten my opponent at arguing, assuming he is open to a rational argument, I tell him where to read further into this. And make sure to include classics which aren't Ayn Rand, such as Hayek. I think the way to do this would be to have schools that teach reason to children, but call it "reason" rather than "Objectivism". One day...

2. Violence is manageable with superior technology (Galt) as we are in much smaller numbers. At the moment we do not have this advantage (and scientists are overwhelmingly liberal thanks to on-campus indoctrination). I am not sure about the next 50-100 years. Technology is no longer a government monopoly, even if they may have a few decades' leadership in military equipment. But I don't think we'll need it, as the world rebalances and the US needs to compete again.

But what you mention is already out there through her own journals and other writings. And there are many other people such as Mary Ann Sures and Jeff Britting that do a good job of giving an indepth look into what Ayn Rand went through and how her thoughts progressed.

The private efforts you outline above are the methods you'll need to spread Objectivism on a local, piecemeal level -- to "convert" a friend, a business partner, a lover. For cultural transformation, however, there will have to be a thorough, large-scale revamp of secondary and entry-level university curricula with a solid emphasis on logical methods, both inductive and deductive; historical philosophical trends, errors, and their consequences; the proper foundations of mathematics, statistics, concepts, definitions, and propositions; and so on. Although some of these ideas are Aristotelian and some of the technical issues have been expanded upon by various individuals, I think it would be unwise to call them "Reason," which is a broad term that can be co-opted by anyone, as we have seen with Immanuel Kant. I think we will have to name the philosophy so that skeptic philosophical challengers of the future know what they are up against.

Ayn Rand provides an outline of what needs to be done in a Columbia University interview given sometime between 1962 and 1966. The interview can be found in Objectively Speaking - Ayn Rand Interviewed. What I have written here, though, is my view, not hers.



When I referred to violence, I was not thinking of dedicated Objectivists forming some tiny army and then fighting everybody else; that would be suicide. That's not how revolt would occur. Under a complete dictatorship, there would first be an ideological priming of the hostage populace over many years. There would be rebel leaders in prison; pamphlets passed in secret; several (or many) rebels martyred by the government. Then there would be rebel leaders abroad or in hiding, forming a shadow government, and passing messages via a technology the government must not be able to infiltrate. There would be regular inspirational broadcasts referring to the better times promised by the new ideology of freedom. There would be appeals to the military forces of the ruling regime, some of whom would be increasingly sympathetic to the struggle. Over time, hopefully, the dominant rebel leaders would be Objectivists. Then, something breaks, likely the exploitation of a crack in the regime's defenses; followed by a period of fighting which would be long or short depending on how much groundwork has been done. Then, Freedom.

Whether we enter into dictatorship or not, my current thinking is that the re-education of the elite in objective thinking methods will take at least a half-century. The Church, the Mosque, superstition, skepticism -- all these have been around for millennia. They will not go quietly. Prepare for battle.

A better indication of Burns' attitude toward Rand, from a book promotional tour stop at Kepler's Books:

From her intro to her talk:
"You may know Ayn Rand as a cheesy novelist beloved by generations of adolescents... there is a grain of truth to this stereotype, but what I argue in my book... is that, instead, we should consider Rand the ultimate gateway drug to life on the American Right."

She concedes that, since most others on the political right are religious and Rand is an Atheist, she wouldn't call Rand a Conservative herself, but would "put her on the political Right." Again proving how vapid, misleading, and rationalistic the Right/Left axis is as a serious tool of classification. In casual speech it's fine, I use it here, but Objectivism doesn't fit on such a scale, when the Left considers the Left itself "The People" and the Right The authoritarian Elite. The irony of that, in light of history and the current administration, is profound.

She's worked a long time on this, studying the unedited journals of Ayn Rand and many other sources... and this is what she has come up with.

She's snide, and, though she's dived deep, she's come up shallow. It will never be a go-to book for the ideas of Ayn Rand, but it's encouraging that it may expose a few unruined student minds, since it is, as Burns is, a product of the academic Left.

It is sad to see someone (Burns) work so hard at honest history for so long, even with access to the ARI archives, and come out of it with such a shallow, often confused academic understanding of Ayn Rand herself, i.e., her ideas, what she stood for and what motivated her. She does a credible job in answering some of the stock criticisms of Ayn Rand posing in the form of interview questions -- at least often bringing the topic back within range of the real world -- but Burns' own lack of understanding repeatedly leads to false statements and serious distortions as she tries to formulate Ayn Rand's position and motives in her own flowery writing, often with dramatic characterizations not intended to be negative but which are equally dramatically wrong. This in turn misrepresents Ayn Rand's own history despite Burns' attempt to honestly use objective source material. It illustrates that one cannot understand history without understanding the ideas that cause it.

You can see this in any of the interviews linked above or in this NPR interview including Burns' platitudes about lack of "balance" in Ayn Rand following cliched misrepresentations.

A good preliminary analysis of the book capturing what has happened is here referred to by Ed Cline here on Burns' own website.

Burns political analysis attempting to relate Ayn Rand to the "right" is consequentially equally misleading in these interviews. Unfortunately that was supposed to be the main purpose of the book, and Burns is apparently becoming a minor celebrity during her book tour promotion over a topic for which there are far better sources -- such as Sense of Life mentioned above and Ayn Rand's own extensive non-fiction writing.

She appears to be a serious scholar, not a hack covering anything. She began this project as a graduate student in history for serious and valid academic reasons; I would not accuse her of cynicism in publishing and promoting the book.


I think that superficial, bogus explanation of Ayn Rand, amounting to subjective speculation, is an example of what happens to historical analysis without serious conceptual understanding.


Not a "valid point", but a common beginner's error -- often continued long after with less intellectual honesty.


Yet it continues to be difficult for many to grasp because it is so radically different in so many ways.

http://blog.mises.org/archives/010890.asp

One needs only read Ayn Rand's article on patents and copyrights to see what nonsense this statement is.


The libertarians who oppose or don't understand what Ayn Rand was talking about in her philosophy are the first to denounce and misrepresent her while desperately trying to cash in on her reputation.


Burns' discussion of this tries to drive a wedge between the "professional" archivists at ARI and Objectivists at ARI. Incredibly she claims that the editing (done for general readability) in the books on Ayn Rand's personal letters and diaries, which had originally not been written or edited for publication, is the most controversial aspect of Ayn Rand's legacy:


The two books Journals of Ayn Rand and Letters of Ayn Rand clearly state how the material in them was compiled and edited for the purpose of a general readership, not "archivists". Serious scholars who want to see the original writing and have the patience to go through it in that form can go to the archives.

The obsessive complaints over non-essentials raised by Burns and Sciabarra, especially in the context of their own basic misunderstandings and misrepresentations, are simply bizarre. They are both academic rationalists more concerned with "ellipses" than knowing what they are talking about. If there is actual misleading editing in either of the two books Journals of Ayn Rand and Letters of Ayn Rand, it has not been described here by either Burns or Sciabarra and one doubts that either would be able to tell the difference at their level of understanding. Journals of Ayn Rand and Letters of Ayn Rand both give far greater insights into Ayn Rand's thinking and method of thinking than anything even approached by the apparently enthusiastic but very wrong scholars Burns and Sciabarra.

And, given this identification, why should they still be called "[serious] scholars"? What does that make those of us who study Ayn Rand and don't make these errors? Unserious non-scholars?

I absolutely and irrevocably refuse to grant them that sanction. These people range from garden-variety mediocrities way out of their league (Burns) to big-time crooks looking to cash in on Ayn Rand's reputation (the Brandens, Kelley, Sciabarra, and all the scumbags in the libertarian movement). True, among their readership there may be innocents who are wary of what they consider "religious fervor" among "true believers." Which is why it's up to those who understand the philosophy to speak out against these distortions, not sanction them.

Here is a careful and perceptive review of the Burn's book by my friend, Jeff Perren:

That's a start. What is so difficult to understand is how someone with such an apparently genuine interest in Ayn Rand and who spent so much time and effort investigating her could so sweepingly misunderstand and stunningly misrepresent so much of what Ayn Rand believed and did and why. Dishonest, reckless smear campaigns are easier to understand. When you look at what Burns is saying, and the review in the Economist cited here by rtg24, along with the long list of "comments" appended there smugly denouncing Ayn Rand on the basis of one gross falsehood after another, it raises the question of how can such ignorance and stupidity on such a mass scale be possible? The scope of this is stunning, which is only magnified by how hard Burns appears to have honestly tried. It takes your breath away and leaves your jaw hanging.


Misrepresenting the philosophy is not "evaluating" it. She honestly reports details then misses and corrupts so much of what is important. That Burns tried to be honest in reporting "details" in the archives doesn't imply that she has done much of importance in providing valuable "snippets" that were put under her nose by those who put in the effort to organize and compile the archives, which is where the real credit should go for such "snippets". And given the mistakes made throughout on major issues, are these "snippets" from Burns even reliable, especially where context is important? Won't the forthcoming biography of Ayn Rand be the real achievement of putting it together and presenting it? I think it's a mistake to become excited at all about the Burns book just because an academic tried to take the subject matter seriously, makes positive remarks about Ayn Rand, and wasn't out to overtly trash her and sneer about it. Such "positive" treatments that are so botched only serve to mislead more people.

Such is the nature of contemporary scholars, which is not to approve of them. The Dark Ages had monks. We have this. It says a lot about what to expect when academics take Objectivism "seriously".

After reading the review Betsy links to, I wouldn't touch the book with a ten-foot pole. "If you don't respect Ayn Rand, I don't respect you," that's my view.

Say, doesn't ARI allowing the author, twisted as she is, access to the Archives refute the often-heared smear that ARI only allows "true believers" near them?

I'll read it eventually anyway, there seems to be interesting facts about Ayn Rand's life in the book. But not before I've read the decent biographies. I think if you are Objective, it is relatively easy to read between the line and extract what is of value to you.

Regarding ARI, I thought her characterization (from the reviews - I haven't read the book) of the ARI "managers" as evil and the librarians (i.e. the ARI "workers") as good and decent and frustrated reminded me of another writer, who used to hang out in Viennese cafes, with a large beard and whose name started with M...

My attitude is: what do Objectivists gain from such a book - aside from some historical data - that we can't find on our own? Sure, it's 'nice' AR is getting more notice, but seriously, I would never read a book that so grossly gets wrong who Miss Rand was. Not to mention an utter lack of understanding Objectivism on even the most basic of levels. Even worse is what people not familiar with AR's works would get from such a distorted view.

I'll pass.

For those wanting a special window into Ayn Rand's soul, I cannot too strongly recommend the four magnificent volumes of essays on her novels, edited by Robert Mayhew and published by Lexington Press:

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=Essays+on+Ayn+Rand%27s

The essays are very wide-ranging. There is something for everyone. They are a pleasure to read, and packed with insight.

Burns is honest and isn't out to defame Ayn Rand. The problem isn't her morality, but her epistemology. It's the way Burns judges other people.

One very common way to seek to understand someone is to ask the question, "How would I feel and what would I do if what happened to her happened to me?" That's OK for starters, but you can't stop there. You always need a lot of corroborating evidence because, if the other person's psycho-epistemology and/or motivation is different than your own, introspection and projection will not work.

Projecting her own values and careless thinking habits onto Ayn Rand, Burns psychologized up a storm about what Ayn Rand felt and did, but in so many cases, Ayn Rand did not do what Burns would have done at all. At this point, Burns should have questioned her assumptions and investigated further, but she didn't and that's how Burns came up with so many "contradictions." It is also why her book, with all the facts at her disposal, reads like a biography of Howard Roark as written by Peter Keating.

Betsy, this is brilliant! I haven't read the book, but it's absolutely true from what I saw in the video you posted. I was puzzling over how she could have honestly missed the point so badly. But this makes perfect sense to me. It's too bad she didn't talk with an Objectivist intellectual about Ayn Rand. Assuming she is honest, I don't understand how she could have such a poor understanding of Objectivism after a conversation with Yaron Brook or Peikoff.

On a side note, I think Jon Stewart seems to have a decent understanding of Ayn Rand. While he may be a leftist idiot, I think it's good that he at least partially understands what a brillant person Miss Rand was.

Yes, exactly! That's excellent, Betsy.

As an actor, that's one of the things you have to avoid in figuring out who the person is you're playing. The lazy route, is just to do what you've described and project yourself into the character. But what if you're playing Freddie Krueger? One has to recognize that 'not everyone thinks the way I do.' As you point out, Burns should have seen what a lousy job this projection was doing for her ability to explain Rand's behavior. "Contradictions" is a total cop-out. If she's going to psychologize, then she needs to take responsibility for her assumptions.

I'll grant you a limited acceptance that she's "honest." But that term has a pretty tight context. With as many years of exposure to Ayn Rand's writings and footage, and recordings, and accounts from others as she had, it's hard to see how she could have failed to gain even a modicum of understanding of Rand's philosophy and view of the world, without a certain amount of evasion. I was a Liberal until I was exposed to classical economics and then read Rand. It's hard not to understand Rand; she certainly writes clearly enough.

There is certainly something wrong with her epistemology, but that is the question. How could an intelligent person apparently motivated to understand and honestly report be so far off so often on so many basic facts? As Alann says, it's not that Ayn Rand wasn't a clear writer.



As for the psychologizing, why would anyone think that Burns consciously approached understanding Ayn Rand with the question "How would I feel and what would I do if what happened to her happened to me?" The psychologizing on a meteorological scale certainly appears to be part of it because she doesn't understand and only has her own and others' similar false premises to go on and to project from, but I don't think she approached it literally and consciously as "how would I feel", etc. She seems to think that what are in fact her projections are the only possibilities, to be reported on as fact. When she is so far off, evidently completely oblivious to it, how could it occur to her to think she was responsible for "questionable assumptions"? How did she get into such an extreme state to begin with?


Ayn Rand's principles are so radical -- "challenging 2000 years of philosophy" is not hyperbole -- that understanding them beyond a certain level is not obvious despite Ayn Rand's own clear and honest writing. But you would have to be pretty far gone to not understand any of it at the level of Burns, and the degree of evasion required for that most likely occurred long before Burns began her research on Ayn Rand. Burns managed not only to miss what Ayn Rand said, but missed the ability to even recognize that she was missing something and question further. What happened to this woman's brain over the course of her education? She was apparently a top high school student, who went on to Harvard followed by Stanford for her graduate work. That takes ability that is hard to match. The frying of her epistemology to such an extreme degree sends shivers up your spine. It's stunning. Yet this is apparently what we can routinely expect from staunchly "non-Objectivist" scholars who take Ayn Rand "seriously".


I think that Peter Keating, at least in his rarer honest moments, would have done a better job. He at least saw Howard Roark succeeding in terms that he could understand architecturally -- even if not fully and though he could not have created it himself -- and at least realized that he did not understand Howard Roark. Burns writes, in what we have seen of her outside the book on numerous occasions promoting her book, as if she has no clue why Ayn Rand should be popular, in addition to not understanding her ideas and motives. Burns seems to be fascinated with Ayn Rand for some kind of personality reasons. Maybe there are clues in the last chapter of her book, which is said to reveal more of Burns' own views.

Why do you think she didn't? I think she said somewhere that she didn't talk to Leonard Peikoff, but I got the impression she had spoken to others. There are indications, however, that she regarded ARI people as something akin to enemies of an almost undercover-mission (see her blog, cited previously in this thread). The question is why, especially when she saw they were being straightforward with her, she would not pursue the obvious opportunities she had. She not only writes about Ayn Rand as if she were from another universe, but was apparently reluctant to venture out of her own.

Here is another one, this time in the Harvard Alumni magazine, stirred up in the name of news by the book tour promotion playing off a single 1960s appearance of Ayn Rand because it was at Harvard. It's filled with the same kind of scholarly-appearing but in fact speculated motives while missing what is important, leaving the question looming at the end of the article, 'What's the point of all this'?

The point seems to be the same kind of rambling overblown trivia often presented in this magazine as a platform pandering to fellow intellectual Harvard elites periodically reminding each other of their accomplishments in the manner of Peter Keating in his architecture association, and promoted for, in the end, fundraising to alumni for the largest-endowed university in the world.

But maybe the pseudo dramatic presentation of unintelligible trivia mixed with unintegrated factoids will raise curiosity about the mystery among some readers who may be inspired to find out more on their own. And so the spreading attention to Ayn Rand continues, but leaving the question, who is understanding what she actually said? Still, we can assume that when her books fall into the hands of the non-elite more common-sense people they will understand directly at least some of it despite the explanations given by "serious scholars" like Burns.

Fried epistemology is a good term. It is like a distorting conceptual lens that filters out contradictions into the rationalistic processor of their mind. You say A, they process B. They really are fried. I say this not just because of disagreement, but because of the reasoning process. I once heard a debate where the person I disagreed with was far more rational than the fellow on my side, who's thoughts were disorganized. I actually wished the other chap was on my side.

Having just been to one of the only two universities in the world that can rival Harvard and Stanford, in the course that has the highest paid graduates and one of the hardest work ethics, I disagree with your assertion that those who do well academically are necessarily more able. The girl who graduated from my class with a starred first, and top of the year, is now doing a PhD in eco-friendly, and her ambition is to be a housewife.

Doing well at Harvard/Stanford/Oxbridge exams only implies being able to spot what the guy who wrote the exam wants to hear. It requires a strong ability to be Keating.

The top guys in my class, those who started (real) companies or are doing the most amazing jobs (one was meeting boards of portfolio companies on his own a month after graduation) graduated with good but not brilliant marks.

What I got from her promo tour talk at Kepler's Books was that she admires Rand's independence in a very limited way. Although she sets about to undermine the very idea of independence, by citing "family help" and other help Rand got in Russia and in the U.S., she seemed to genuinely admire Rand for having the unarguable courage to set about to get her degree, then get the hell out of Russia with the intention of never returning, at an age when such maturity, clarity, and committment is even more remarkable.

As one who achieved herself, Burns, I think, recognizes such committment even as she tries, perhaps for her own psychological comfort, to undercut it. I think through projection, she sees, wherever possible, and whether significant or not, Rand using personal relationships to achieve her goals. She doesn't seem to give much thought to the possibility that those others, such as Cecil B DeMille, Isobel Paterson, Bennet Cerf, & others, were as impressed with her as Burns projects she must have been with them and gained at least as much value in the transaction.

But, I think Burns still has that residual admiration for hard work and achievement, which is something.

I, likewise, appreciate your "fried epistemology". It's sad, but accurate.

I didn't say that academic success means being most able in general. It clearly doesn't. Even those who do the best in engineering schools don't necessarily become the best engineers, let alone run their own companies. But for someone who wants to be in academia, it takes a great deal of ability to be accepted and go through the institutions that Burns did -- which includes, beyond the earliest level, a lot more than passing exams. It does not, however, imply that success in that progression means coming out of it with even academic ability to do truly good work and being beyond the equivalent of a Peter Keating. It simply means that there is more to betray. Burns apparently not only told her professors what they wanted to hear -- she probably did not think of it consciously in such terms at all and didn't necessarily agree with all their views -- more important is that she thinks and writes in the way they expect her to think and write: She knows how to do "research", is articulate, has the acceptable intellectual "style", and is facile in dealing with (mostly manipulating) ideas. It takes equally strong ability for a good thinker to go through such a progression of institutions, but in a way it is even more difficult for him because he has to resist the rationalistic influences to come out of it unscathed and not epistemologically fried.

I'm sorry, I meant to state in my post that I had no basis for the assertion that she hadn't. It seems inconceivible to me that she could have conversed with Objectivist intellectuals and still have such gross misunderstandings.

It seems inconceivable that she could have spent 8 years of research even in a vacuum and still have such gross misunderstandings. But, either way, she did it.

Ed Locke responded with a good letter to the editor keying off the Burns article in the Harvard Alumni magazine (scroll down through the letters):

It is followed by a couple of letters pushing the usual distortions and speculated caricatures of AR and her motives (like Burns) to desperately plead that no one read her.