3 ms·

Considering how much just about every other quote in that article was taken out of context, I would expect that was too.

by dgordon 17y ago

unalone 17y ago
The Branden quotes weren't taken out of context. It was the Branden affair that first led me to doubt her words, and that's pretty much as it happened. Back-up of the mass murdering psychopath bits: http://michaelprescott.net/hickman.htm http://michaelprescott.net/hickman.htm FTA: According to Rand scholar Chris Matthew Sciabarra, she deliberately modeled Renahan - intended to be her first sketch of her ideal man - after this same William Edward Hickman. Renahan, she enthuses in another journal entry, "is born with a wonderful, free, light consciousness -- [resulting from] the absolute lack of social instinct or herd feeling. He does not understand, because he has no organ for understanding, the necessity, meaning, or importance of other people ... Other people do not exist for him and he does not understand why they should." So she modeled her initial Randian Hero after the psychopath. In the original version of her first novel We the Living: "What are your masses [of humanity] but mud to be ground underfoot, fuel to be burned for those who deserve it?" Sounds Jokereqsue, no? Of The Fountainhead's hero, Howard Roark: He "has learned long ago, with his first consciousness, two things which dominate his entire attitude toward life: his own superiority and the utter worthlessness of the world." And: The editor also provides the briefest and most detail-free synopsis of Hickman's crime possible: "He was accused of kidnapping and murdering a young girl. He was found guilty and sentenced to death in February of 1928; he was hanged on October 20, 1928." As far as I can tell, this is the one and only reference to Hickman's victim to be found anywhere in the book. Ayn Rand never mentions the victim at all in any of her journal entries. The closest she comes is a sneering reference to another girl, "who wrote a letter to Hickman [in jail], asking him 'to get religion so that little girls everywhere would stop being afraid of him.'" Pretty damning. And there's much, much more.

Considering how much just about every other quote in that article was taken out of context, I would expect that was too.

by dgordon 17y ago

Considering how much just about every other quote in that article was taken out of context, I would expect that was too.

unalone 17y ago

The Branden quotes weren't taken out of context. It was the Branden affair that first led me to doubt her words, and that's pretty much as it happened. Back-up of the mass murdering psychopath bits: http://michaelprescott.net/hickman.htm http://michaelprescott.net/hickman.htm FTA: According to Rand scholar Chris Matthew Sciabarra, she deliberately modeled Renahan - intended to be her first sketch of her ideal man - after this same William Edward Hickman. Renahan, she enthuses in another journal entry, "is born with a wonderful, free, light consciousness -- [resulting from] the absolute lack of social instinct or herd feeling. He does not understand, because he has no organ for understanding, the necessity, meaning, or importance of other people ... Other people do not exist for him and he does not understand why they should." So she modeled her initial Randian Hero after the psychopath. In the original version of her first novel We the Living: "What are your masses [of humanity] but mud to be ground underfoot, fuel to be burned for those who deserve it?" Sounds Jokereqsue, no? Of The Fountainhead's hero, Howard Roark: He "has learned long ago, with his first consciousness, two things which dominate his entire attitude toward life: his own superiority and the utter worthlessness of the world." And: The editor also provides the briefest and most detail-free synopsis of Hickman's crime possible: "He was accused of kidnapping and murdering a young girl. He was found guilty and sentenced to death in February of 1928; he was hanged on October 20, 1928." As far as I can tell, this is the one and only reference to Hickman's victim to be found anywhere in the book. Ayn Rand never mentions the victim at all in any of her journal entries. The closest she comes is a sneering reference to another girl, "who wrote a letter to Hickman [in jail], asking him 'to get religion so that little girls everywhere would stop being afraid of him.'" Pretty damning. And there's much, much more.