[nickcarraway]

Dostoevsky beat his wife

Can you give a citation for that, or are you just spreading B.S. to discredit a conservative writer?

[Talisker]

Can you give a citation for that, or are you just spreading B.S. to discredit a conservative writer?

Well gee, since I'm posting it in order to defend conservative writings and writers, up to and including Ayn Rand (you know, the subject of this thread?), I guess I'll have to pick Door Number 1: I am not "just spreading B.S."

But I won't do any research for you. You can either take me at my word, travel to Russia to research Dostoevsky's original papers, or... hmmm... use Google?

Up to you.

[Talisker]

Here's an update - I just travelled to Russia to read Dostoevsky's original papers (I know I said I wouldn't do your research, but I got curious) and found that Dostoevsky may not have beat his wife. I remember reading that he did, but I can't find the cite now. However, I did find that he argued in favor of "traditional Russian" cultural practices, and expressly included "appropriate" wife beating, and that he had "intense quarrels" with his wife, and of course his novels contain illustrations of the subject.

So, I'll plead questionable to my claim. But I still think I read it somewhere.

However - my stinking point was that writers are not perfect, and it is plain common sense that many have written ennobling works of art that they did not personally live up to (Common Sense is a good example, apparently Thomas Paine had hideous personal hygiene).

For other examples, William Faulkner, Dorothy Parker, Eugene O'Neill, Edgar Allen Poe, F. Scott Fitzgerald, John Steinbeck, John Cheever, Jack London and Sinclair Lewis were all alcoholics. Should we burn their books?

I will be the first to admit that Ayn Rand made some terrible personal choices, starting with the person she chose to "carry on her work." But the crucial issues she wrote about were, and are, timeless - and precious.

It is to her eternal credit that collectivist tyrants the world over still shake with rage when they hear her name.