Romancing the Stone-Cold Killer: Ayn Rand and William Hickman

Michael Presscott ^ | 2005 | Michael Presscott

[Mojave]

In her journal circa 1928 Rand quoted the statement, "What is good for me is right," a credo attributed to a prominent figure of the day, William Edward Hickman. Her response was enthusiastic. "The best and strongest expression of a real man's psychology I have heard," she exulted.

At the time, she was planning a novel that was to be titled The Little Street, the projected hero of which was named Danny Renahan. 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." (Journals, pp. 27, 21-22; emphasis hers.)

"A wonderful, free, light consciousness" born of the utter absence of any understanding of "the necessity, meaning, or importance of other people." Obviously, Ayn Rand was most favorably impressed with Mr. Hickman. He was, at least at that stage of Rand's life, her kind of man.

So the question is, who exactly was he?

William Edward Hickman was one of the most famous men in America in 1928. But he came by his fame in a way that perhaps should have given pause to Ayn Rand before she decided that he was a "real man" worthy of enshrinement in her pantheon of fictional heroes.

You see, Hickman was a forger, an armed robber, a child kidnapper, and a multiple murderer.

Other than that, he was probably a swell guy.

[Mojave]

You value laws which say that a child can have it's brains sucked out of it's head right up until it's birth.

Laws against partial birth abortion have been blocked by people like you, who put their amoral rationalizations over the values of society.

For example:

"Abortion is a moral right—which should be left to the sole discretion of the woman involved; morally, nothing other than her wish in the matter is to be considered." --Ayn Rand

Nice foot shot, BTW.

[Lurker]

Laws against partial birth abortion have been blocked by people like you

Not by me. I'm as pro-life as they come. So nice try there Skippy.

You're the one who insists it's my duty to bow down to the monsters who legalized this barbaric practice. You know with all that "societies laws and values" crap you've been spouting.

This is one of the few things Rand was dead wrong about. Abortion is an act of violence initiated against a completely innocent third party.

So don't presume that you know my attitudes on the subject.

[Mojave]

I'm as pro-life as they come.

"Abortion is a moral right—which should be left to the sole discretion of the woman involved; morally, nothing other than her wish in the matter is to be considered." --Ayn Rand

Cognitive dissonance.

[Lurker]

That was Rands view. It's not mine.

Cognitive dissonance.

You don't know what that means, do you. I'm not holding two opposing ideas in my head simultaneously. I've never claimed to be an Objectivist, just that Rand was right about a hell of a lot more than what she was wrong about.

Nobody's perfect, Scooter.

L

[Mojave]

I'm not holding two opposing ideas in my head simultaneously.

Uh huh. Objectivist moral values are objective truths derived by reason, except when they're not.

I've never claimed to be an Objectivist, just that Rand was right about a hell of a lot more than what she was wrong about.

You've just unwittingly refuted the very basis of her "philosophy." An atheistic, materialistic, pro-abortion groupie of a serial killer seems mostly right to you?

[PubliusMM]

Truly a slap in the face of objectivism. There is NO way the anointed one, or any of his minions, could rightly be called objectivists...NO way.

[Mojave]

Objectism is self worship combined with a complete contempt for the values and desires of “average” people. Who manifests those characteristics more intensely than the anointed one?

[PubliusMM]

Don’t think I agree with that...

Objectivism recognizes the selfish importance of individuals. Objectivists seek to be not directed by others and seek not to direct others in their social, moral, or ethical duties. I don’t see that as ‘complete contempt’ but rather ‘blatant non-concern’.