[DoctorMichael]

"She had a young man, lover, whom she betrayed and abused, both verbally and physichaly. (My spelling is terrible, forgive me.) She was married before to an older man whom she betrayed with her dalliances."

None of this supports your first statement which I believe to be a fabrication and a lie....................

"Ayn Rand was an alchoholic nutbag."

Are you a liar? Or do you just fabricate things in your Posts?

PS. I find your Posts neither 'provacative' nor 'educational'.

[my_pointy_head_is_sharp]

A quick google search shows that it was Ayn Rand's husband, Frank O'Conner, who was the alcoholic. Her lover, Nathaniel Branden, was also married. After Branden broke off the affair, Rand publically cut off all ties with him, writing a 6-page essay in her newsletter, in which she repudiated both Branden and his wife.

Part of the story can be found here.

[headsonpikes]

Thanks loads for sending this interesting thread to the SBR.

[beckett]

It is well known that Rand was a pill freak, addicted to uppers for decades. It may be true that her alcohol consumption did not match her husband's, but her cigarette and pill habits were gargantuan.

In the final days of her life one of her last friends (the rest were long gone), Joan Blumenthal, asked her to renounce her position on tobacco, and retract such remarks as "To be anti-smoking is to be anti-life!" Rand knew that many Objectivists smoked as a sort of honorific to her. At that time Rand had just had half a lung removed due to smoking induced lung cancer. She knew she had been wrong about cigarettes. Blumenthal said, "Many people still smoke because they respect you and respect your assessment of the evidence. [Rand deplored the "unscientific and irrational" nature of statistical evidence] Since you no longer smoke, you ought to tell them. You needn't mention the lung cancer if you prefer not to, you can simply say you've reconsidered the evidence." Ayn refused. "It's no one business," she said.

What kind of philosopher is that? There are dozens of similar tales in her life story -- hundreds in fact. You think Little Billy Clinton has trouble admitting error? He is a piker compared to Ayn Rand.

Ayn Rand got a few important things right, but her overall she was a brilliant nutjob whose views about reason and human nature are hopelessly stunted. As many have said, if she'd had a child, avoided the affair with Branden and stayed off pills, she might have made a true contribution to epistemology. As it is, though, her "philosophy" is an empty husk with only occasional relevance to life as it is really lived.

[annyokie]

Relax, Mike. IMHO Ayn Rand is a fraud and everything I have read about her rings that true. If you want to worship her, g'head, as they say back East. I dislike her books and her hedonist philosophy. So be it.

Victor Frankl, rock on.