Donor of Ayn Rand Manuscript, U.S. Are Not on the Same Page

LA Times ^ | 3/5/2002 | BOB POOL

[jennyp]

Ayn Rand wrote the book on the chasm between personal happiness and a heavy-handed government. Leonard Peikoff illustrated it.

That's how Rand fans say the empty picture frame on Peikoff's wall figures into the fight over two pages of her original handwritten manuscript of "The Fountainhead."

Federal officials seized the pages after Peikoff joked that he "stole" them from the Library of Congress. Peikoff, a writer and philosopher, was a lifelong friend of Rand and is an expert on her philosophy of objectivism, which teaches that individuals--not the government--are the key to the development of a healthy society. He inherited the scrawled first drafts of "The Fountainhead," "Atlas Shrugged" and two other books when she died in 1982.

[jennyp]

Talk about head-shaking irony!

CLICK HERE for the full LA Times article.

[jennyp]

I can't believe there was no Ayn_Rand_List until now!

[jennyp]

Life-like-a-novel BUMP.

[Robert_Paulson2]

yes well then... add me to it...

[thinktwice]

I'm an Any Rand fan, and I'm coming to the opinion that her based-in -reality work is more important than Aristotle's.

Given that Aristtotle is the father of Western Civilization, that is no small statement.

[supercat]

Anyone both read the book and seen the movie? I liked the movie; some nice architectural commentary in there, especially with some of the "changes" people insisted on making to Rourke's work.

[Burkeman1]

Rand was an ex-pat russian intellectual who hated the pervailing American Leftism among her new friends- but yet stayed true to the western left by merely keeping her views strictley economic while adopting the values and mores of the Left. She despised religion or any sort of moral code other than the bottom line. Not to mention that she was an insect of a human being in her personal and business life.

[Burkeman1]

think twrice

[breakem]

Thanx. we'll call you for future character references. I'm sure Ayn would have changed her life to meet your moral expectations. She so cared about "feedback."

[Burkeman1]

OF Course not- Ayn' only "feedback" was monetary and that is the same to her followers. All the shameful personal faults of this truly sad woman mean little to her acolytes like you. She lived by her own code- basically nothing other than the bottom line.

[breakem]

acolytes? LOL. I am here merely to point out the irony of you criticizing a person who believed in individuals the way she did, as if you thought it had some significance.

For you to attribute anything else to me based upon that narrow point brings in to question your positions regarding others.

[ValerieUSA]

I wonder if Rand had been alive today to experience the internet if she would have participated in forums like Free Republic and posted under many different names as both men and women for her own amusement and self-serving purposes, while laughing at the little people who fell for her clever tricks, and running scared from anyone who might start to catch on.

[Gordian Blade]

Hey, how come I'm not on the Ayn Rand bump list? I even reviewed the movie version of We The Living on Free Republic a while back! (PS -- If you are a fan and haven't see it, you should.)

[Burkeman1]

True enough if any other forum- but not this one. I think I am right and I don't play games.

[NatureGirl]

or any sort of moral code

That's very funny. Her books defined morality, but you say she lacked any sort of moral code. She also said that her books showed the world as it ought to be. She never claimed that she was perfect - just closer to perfect than some.

Exactly how much Rand have you read? And how did you arrive at the ludicrous conclusion that she was a Lefty??

[StriperSniper]

"I'm 68 and a heart patient and could not accept the prospect of being further weakened physically by the stress,

I didn't know he had a heart condition, but I did think he was going to have a stroke back in September when he wanted to nuke Afghanistan. So did I at the time, too late now the scum are all spread out.

;-)

[Free the USA]

Ayn_Rand_list

Great addition

Check the Bump List folders for articles related to the above topic(s) or for other topics of interest.

[Burkeman1]

Rand ridiculed moral rightists of her time, incluidng even potential allies of the time like Murray Rothbard- a devout Presbyterian, but ardetn oppenent of the "cold war" but still right wing. Rand was even more valuable to the left as an anti religious creature. Rand was and is worthless to the conservative movement. She enshrines Adam Smith like the LEft does Marx- as a God. Rand- is at heart- a leftist- as she jettisons all of the collective knowledge, institutions, associations, groups, and natural proclivities of man for her "theory". Sorry- man is not a "theory" and we will never bow to that idea- that is what conservatism is about! We don't have the answers! We are against those who think they do!

[breakem]

You think your right and don't play games. If you understood my comment you'd smile and acknowledge the small point I made. Instead, you attributed something to me that was just a guess and now your defensive. As Ayn might say, we all are free to chose our responses. You made a bad choice. Oh, that's just my opinion.

[thinktwice]

She despised religion or any sort of moral code other than the bottom line.

Ayn Rand's "The Objectivist Ethics" is a brilliant, based-in-reality work, and it nicely complements -- from a different angle -- Aristotle's practical Nichomachean ethics that assisted Alexander in becoming "Alexander the Great."

Philosophically speaking, though, Ayn Rand's Objectivist Ethics is far more realistic, and of practical significance, than Aristotle's ethics of eudaemonism.