Ayn Rand on Negatives

ARI

I’ve heard that Miss Rand was not shy about express­ing her evalua­tion in public of some­thing that displeased her. Did either of you ever witness this?

MARY ANN

Along with a few friends, I at­tended a piano recital at Carnegie Hall with Ayn and Frank. The artist was Witold Malcuzynski, and the program was predominant­ly Romantic music. We were seated in the front row, direct­ly beneath the pianist. At the end of each Romantic piece, Ayn expressed her approval by smil­ing broad­ly and hold­ing her hands up as she applauded. Then, he played a modern piece; I don’t remember what it was, but it was aw­ful. At the end of that piece, some peo­ple in the audience stood up and applauded. Ayn—without tak­ing her eyes off the pianist—remained seated. She raised her arms slow­ly, then lowered them and sat on her hands.

ARI

Did he see it?

MARY ANN

Oh, yes. I was watch­ing him watch her. He saw her disapproval. She said later that sitt­ing on one’s hands was a common practice in Europe and that he would know what the gesture meant.

CHARLES

I had a similar experience, although in this case she was vocal. In the late seventies, Ayn, Frank, Sue, Leon­ard, Mary Ann, and I went to the Metropolitan Opera for a per­for­mance of Tchaikovsky’s opera Eugene Onegin, an opera that Ayn knew and liked. She was seated between Frank and me, and seemed to be enjoy­ing the per­for­mance. However, dur­ing the ballroom scene, she got very annoyed. I heard her take a deep breath, she nudged my arm and said, “Oh!” and words to the effect that it was terrible. She did the same with Frank. She expressed her disapproval loud­ly enough to be heard by those seated around us. When Frank and I whispered that she was disturb­ing peo­ple, she stopped. But she had made her point.

ARI

What did she object to?

CHARLES

The scene was romantic: the music was beauti­ful, the sett­ing was elegant. Sudden­ly, members of the female chorus broke out into some­thing like a can-can dance. They turned their backs to the audience, raised their filmy skirts, and pushed out their behinds and wiggled them at the audience. It was ug­ly and shocking­ly out of con­text—a deliberate un­der­cutt­ing of the romantic values of the scene. Ayn made her disapproval known. When the opera was over, she vowed never to go to the Metropolitan Opera again. She said that it had to have been done by conscious inten­tion, a deliberate slap in the face at a Romantic work of art. She said she couldn’t sit there and be silent, not when values were be­ing attacked. That was a vintage Ayn Rand incident.

ARI

Is it true that she expressed disapproval dur­ing ques­tion periods after lec­tures?

MARY ANN

Yes, but her critics have made too much of those incidents, especial­ly about their frequency in public; they’ve magnified it out of all propor­tion.

No one should forget that she defined a phi­los­o­phy which has improved countless lives. She has inspired readers, by tell­ing them that their minds are capable of un­der­stand­ing reality, and by giv­ing them a morality of life. She has given them the incentive to achieve goals and move forward; she has created works of art in which man is an exalted be­ing. Who else is do­ing that today in literature? Now, there were times when she did get angry in public, dur­ing ques­tion periods after a lec­ture. But to focus on those occasions is mislead­ing. You have to ask: what is important about Ayn Rand? That she wrote Atlas Shrugged and defined a phi­los­o­phy one can live by, or that, at times, she was capable of gett­ing very angry? They are not equivalents.

ARI

You saw this anger yourself, dur­ing the ques­tion periods?

MARY ANN

Yes, but certain­ly not at every ques­tion period. And it’s important to un­der­stand that she was not angry at anyone personal­ly. She did not know the peo­ple involved; she was speak­ing to strangers. And many of the ques­tions she answered were written ques­tions—neither she nor the audience knew who had asked the ques­tions; on­ly the ques­tioners knew. What’s relevant here is that she expressed anger and indigna­tion, not so much at the person ask­ing a ques­tion but at the ideas expressed, or ideas she thought were implicit in the ques­tion asked. That was the focus of her anger.

ARI

Can one of you elaborate on this point?

CHARLES

Ayn was perceptive. She could see what assump­tions were behind certain ques­tions; she could detect the hidden agendas, the unnamed ideas. She knew when some­one was, for example, real­ly ques­tion­ing the validity of reason or advocat­ing altruism—without say­ing it open­ly. And she knew what those ideas would lead to if put into effect; she knew the practical consequences of those ideas. She un­der­stood that man’s survival was at stake. Ayn was always the defender of man’s life and values, and when she saw them be­ing attacked, in any form, she responded forceful­ly. She was not a “tolerant” person. If what you said was evil or serious­ly wrong, she let you know it and she let you know what she thought and felt about it. (There were other reasons for her anger, as well—see Leon­ard Peikoff’s memoir men­tioned above.)

ARI

Were there any kinds of ques­tions she especial­ly disliked?

MARY ANN

She didn’t like ques­tions that began with: “Miss Rand, I un­der­stand what you said about so-and-so, but don’t you think. . .?”—followed by the ques­tioner present­ing a dif­fer­ent point of view. That form of the ques­tion implied that Ayn was say­ing one thing while think­ing some­thing else, that she was be­ing hypocritical. Often her response was, “No, if I had thought so, I would have said so.” It was said in a very matter-of-fact tone of voice. But sometimes she answered with anger. One night, I heard her explain to an audience just why that form of the ques­tion was offensive and improper, what it implied, and why she was indignant. Everyone benefited from hear­ing her analysis.

ARI

Can you give a specific example of when she responded angri­ly to a ques­tion?

MARY ANN

Some­one asked her for her views on immigra­tion, if she thought it was a good thing. And she got indignant immediate­ly at the very idea that anyone might be opposed to immigra­tion, that a country might not let immigrants in. One of the things she said in her answer was, “Where would I be today if America closed its doors to immigrants?” That real­ly hit home; I’m sure every­one there realized that she would not have survived in Soviet Russia, that a person with her ideas would have died in prison, somewhere in Siberia. In her answer, she was defend­ing peo­ple who were seek­ing freedom and a better life. And I think she was assum­ing that immigrants would be like she was—ready and able to make their own way, accept­ing help if voluntari­ly given by individuals but not expect­ing government handouts. But it was clear that she was angry at the idea, not at the person ask­ing the ques­tion.

I heard peo­ple say­ing things like “I had no idea what I was real­ly advocat­ing.” Ayn was teach­ing the students the importance of analyz­ing their ideas, of un­der­stand­ing what was implicit in what they had been taught to believe and why it was wrong and often evil.

CHARLES

I’d like to add two points here. One is that her expressions of anger were the excep­tion, not the rule. Two, they were often followed by applause from the audience—because the listeners were inspired by hear­ing some­one speak­ing up for and defend­ing what was right and good. They had heard, over and over again, mea­ly-mouthed speakers afraid to take a posi­tion—or suggest­ing that there are always two sides to a ques­tion —or that noth­ing is black and white. To have been subjected to those attitudes from childhood on up, and then to hear Ayn Rand take a firm posi­tion and defend it with convic­tion—this was a cause for cheer­ing. The audience response was not on­ly to the content of her ideas, but to her manner of express­ing them. She was medicine for the soul.

MARY ANN

All those adults who taught us never to get angry, or if we did, not to express it, to hide our emo­tions when we were offended or felt we were be­ing treated unjust­ly, to remain calm, to maintain an even keel, for God’s sake, don’t blow up, no matter what—these peo­ple didn’t do us any favors by urg­ing us to suppress, to live like glazed, non-react­ing creatures.

ARI

Did she ever get angry dur­ing philosophical discussions when peo­ple were slow to get her point?

MARY ANN

I wouldn’t call the response “anger”—it was more exaspera­tion border­ing on impatience. The best example of this I can remember was a group discussion, before Atlas was published. Some of the Collective, myself included, were hav­ing difficulty demonstrat­ing that life is the standard of morality. So, the issue was explained again, and we were asked to write an essay on the subject and br­ing it back the follow­ing Saturday night. A few of us did, and she was surprised to learn that on­ly Leon­ard was able to do it correct­ly. The rest of us made errors or left out steps in the argument. I remember her look­ing puzzled by it, for the issue had been discussed in detail and we had all read that sec­tion of Galt’s speech over and over. But she did get very annoyed when some­one, I think Nathan, suggested that maybe that sec­tion needed more explica­tion.

ARI

What did she say?

MARY ANN

She said that she couldn’t make that sec­tion of the speech any clearer than she had. But what real­ly interested her was how our minds were work­ing, how we were process­ing the informa­tion, what we were do­ing mental­ly, what we were do­ing right and what we were do­ing wrong in our think­ing.

I’ve never forgotten that even­ing, because it opened up a subject new to me—introspect­ing to analyze one’s think­ing processes. I had the same experience with her some years later when I was revis­ing my lec­tures on esthetics. I hadn’t given sufficient thought to a certain issue of style, and I couldn’t explain my reasons for introduc­ing it in the way I did. I could see her grow­ing impatience, and I remember clear­ly her frown­ing and say­ing, “What’s happened to your epistemology, Mary Ann?” So, we spent the rest of the even­ing discuss­ing that. She wanted to get at the reasons for my muddled think­ing, to identify why, as she put it, my mental wires were crossed. That was typical­ly Ayn. If she saw you flounder­ing and hav­ing difficulty think­ing clear­ly, she wanted to help you, to get you back on track.

ARI

Any final thoughts on the subject?

CHARLES

Just this: her expressions of anger were not the outbursts of some­one run by wild and uncontrolled emo­tions. She didn’t use anger to intimidate peo­ple, as bullies do. When she got angry, it was precise­ly because she was a thinker and an evaluator who was certain of her convic­tions. She judged some­thing as right or wrong, good or evil—and she responded according­ly. She didn’t simmer and stew; she came to an immediate boil. Her think­ing was not hampered and slowed down by chronic doubt, and her emo­tions were not suppressed or muted by it, either. Moreover, her emo­tions never clouded or distorted her think­ing. And the anger didn’t last. It was over almost as soon as it began.

MARY ANN

At some point, you are go­ing to ask me what I miss about her. One of the things I miss most is what we’ve been talk­ing about—her anger and righteous indigna­tion, and what it came from. I miss know­ing that there is some­one in the world who always speaks out, unequivocal­ly, against irra­tionality and injustice, and who not on­ly denounces evil but who defends the good. She was mankind’s in­tel­lec­tu­al guardian, a soldier in the battle of ideas. Her banner was always fly­ing high.

When she died, some­one made the follow­ing comment: now anger has gone out of the world. And I thought, it’s true, and it’s the world’s loss, and mine.

CHARLES

And mine.

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