Terrence-
I'll take your statements one at a time:
<<She is zany and the New World Order has already infected her psyche.>>
This seems to be a restatement of your thesis, not a considered rationale. I gather it reflects your opinion, but it tells me essentially nothing about Barbara.
<<She was an idiot to believe it was "objective" to condone and (for a time) actually *encourage* her ex-husband Nathaniel's torrid affair with Ayn Rand. >>
I cannot corroborate that she encouraged her husband's infidelity, but neither can I assert your claim is false. Based on "The Passion" (the book), so great was her enthrallment with Rand, she struggled in vain to accept the affair. How do you think she "encouraged" it?
Yes, she was foolish in her attempt "rationally accept" what her own sentiments, experience, heart and mind told her was very wrong. Such is not an uncommon experience in cultdom. In addition to being under the sway of a powerful personality, she was a young woman struggling with herself in an injudicious marriage. If that makes someone an "idiot" in your book, so be it. Not in mine- she came to her senses on the subject.
But since you agree that she was wrong to try to force herself to accept what Rand had "proven" to her was rational and good, why do you ignore the culpability of those who tried to convince her of the "rationality" of said affair. Why is Barbara, the most vulnerable of the threesome, an "idiot" while her husband and the far more worldly-wise Rand are not also implicated? After all, they not only constructed the situation, but "proved" to her how beneficial it all was.
<<Then she became a mixed-up sot and began hitting the bottle a little too hard.>>
I see, someone goes through a devastating marriage breakup and succumbs "a little" to the temptation of an ethanol-induced amnesia, and that qualifies her as an "idiot" in your book. While not good, I submit it is quite understandable, and I believe anyone who thinks as you do on the subject is rather opaque to humanity.
<<Then she attempted to paint "The Collective" (...) as a morose group of intellectual robots kowtowing to Rand's pontifications. A weirdly twisted view of the true environment.>>
A view largely shared by Murray Rothbard and numerous others, I might add. Idiots all, I'm sure, eh Terrence? Oh yes, and one of these independent intellectual giants (Nathaniel) copied Rand's mis-pronunciation of Rothbard's name as "rotbutt". It would indeed be interesting to hear Alan Greenspan's view of those days in his life. I would only point out that his writings of the time- while critical of statism- were much more measured than were Rand's. I don't know that he has ever discussed publicly the reasons he broke from Rand's group, but I think he did so before NBI disintegrated. We can await his memoirs.
<<She gabs on excitingly about books that have "brainwashed" her.>>
Where did BB discuss books that "brainwashed" her? I never heard her try to evade responsibility for her own errors- she admitted many of them openly. A rather healthier attitude than one that denies the capacity for error, I might add.
Larry |
