Dear Editor
DEAR EDITOR SACCO-VANZETTI It is, I suppose, to be expected that in his long retreat from radicalism James Rorty should eventually come to the conclusion that Sacco and Vanzetti were "in all...
...Because "Objectivism has more of an intellectual than an emotional appeal," because it "is being sold to them as a philosophy of reason that can lead to an intellectual Renaissance...
...By Manus' inplicit definition, then, any philosophy with precisely defined and firmly stated tenets is to be considered maniacal...
...He did, however, exhibit an almost obsessive concern with the more sartorial—and superficial—aspects of the evening...
...New York City ALLAN BLUMENTHAL, M.D...
...Her Atlas Shrugged is a defense of man's inalienable right to be free from the rule of power lords of any stripe...
...ARTHUR SCHLESINGER JR...
...As a libertarian I am in a fog, and not even the ending has clarity...
...Manus does not interrupt his invectives to say...
...New York City ADELAIDE SCHULKIND MANUS' AYN RAND Willard Manus' article, "Ayn Rand: The New Messiah" (NL, September 26), states in essence that (1) Objectivism is a philosophy for power-hungry, power-mad and paranoic individuals and (2) industrial gods and supermen will rule with a free hand in a society established under this philosophy...
...Collectivist theory declares as its final goal the complete destruction of private property and the entrepreneur, large or small, and the subservience of the individual to the state...
...She portrays man as he can and should be if he were to live rationally and to fulfill the best within him...
...Manus does not explain what it is that he fears about the growth of the Objectivist movement...
...What ideas are "selling" the educated young people on this philosophy of reason...
...But the reasoning by which he purports to justify that conclusion is astonishing, even for Rorty...
...New York City EDITH EFRON NUCLEAR DISARMING Steve Allen ("Dear Editor," NL, August 15-22) first takes extreme personal offense at a column in which I criticized certain advocates of unilateral nuclear disarmament, i.e., of unconditional surrender to Communist slavery...
...Objectivism is "catching on" as an intellectual movement, says Manus, and is "attracting educated young people to its ranks...
...it relieves Manus of the responsibility to discuss the content of any philosophy and the specific solutions it offers...
...In a name-calling diatribe on Atlas Shrugged, Manus reports that John Gait, the hero of this novel, "delivers a 57-page lecture...
...He does, however, quote from Atlas Shrugged the idea that the destroyers of the world are "those who believe there are no principles, no absolutes, no knowledge, no mind...
...This attitude is very convenient...
...What is its "intellectual appeal...
...After listening to a brilliant two-hour lecture, explaining a totally new and original theory of human volition, Manus obviously felt no need to discuss that theory in his article...
...It enables him to dismiss the total of Objectivism—from metaphysics to epistemology to morality to politics to esthetics—without a single logical argument...
...A man so lacking in the fundamentals of philosophical perceptiveness and critical responsibility has no place on a supposedly intellectual magazine—or even on a respectable trade publication...
...Jackson Heights, N. Y. GLORYA G. COVEL The primary characteristics of Willard Manus' "review" are a crude attempt at smear-through-sarcasm, and a total absence of specifically intellectual appraisal, criticism and argument...
...Not once in his article did he attempt to explain the system of ideas he was attacking, nor did he discuss—let alone refute—any of the specific tenets of this system...
...He ignores the objective meaning of the events and the philosophy of Atlas Shrugged, and projects instead his own emotional reactions...
...Willard Manus tries to attack Objectivism by hurling insults at it, and by refusing to identify it...
...But in the October 3 issue he denies that he is in favor of unilateral nuclear disarmament...
...One need only read The Fountainhead, Miss Rand's earlier novel, to know that as a statement of the meaning of her philosophy this is utter nonsense...
...Thus he makes a great point of the fact that the seven surviving jurors denied in 1950 that they were influenced by political prejudice...
...Miss Rand devotes considerable effort to explaining that the worst of all men is the man who goes after power and she demonstrates how, in a rational world, such a striving for power over others can only lead to ultimate failure and pain...
...One tends to forgive a child who, lacking the ability of an adult to cope with a difficult situation, resorts in anger and frustration to name calling...
...Manus claims to find Ayn Rand's ideas ridiculous, but at no time does he attempt to disprove them...
...His orgies of petty and ineffectual malice would be far more appropriate in the gossip columns of a third-rate tabloid...
...However, when an adult engages in hurling insulting epithets in the guise of a criticism of Ayn Rand's philosophy, the only appropriate reply is to state that his ignorance is superseded only by his very bad manners...
...Apparently, therefore," Rorty writes, "the Lowell Committee, which also interviewed the jurors, was right in finding that Judge Thayer did not communicate his prejudice to the jury...
...Cambridge, Mass...
...About the rest of Gait's speech, which contains the basic tenets of the philosophy of Objectivism, the chain of proofs that back up Ayn Rand's revolutionary Morality of Reason, Manus maintains total silence...
...Her characters do not suffer delusions of persecution—the ultimate goal of collectivism is no delusion...
...Readers of Manus' article who want the answers to these questions, who want to know what Objectivism is, and why Atlas Shrugged is inspiring such intellectual and moral conviction, are advised to read the book for themselves...
...Cambridge, Mass...
...Did he really imagine that they would say in 1950 that they had sent two men to the electric chair because they didn't like anarchists...
...And where would we have been without James Jerome Hill's "delusion of greatness" which resulted in the building of the Great Northern Railroad and the opening of the Pacific Northwest region of our country...
...If Manus has a secret desire to be a reporter for Women's Wear Daily, he has missed his calling...
...New York City VIVIAN GRANT The outstanding characteristic of Willard Manus' attack on Objectivisim is his failure to challenge directly any single idea...
...Did Rorty really suppose that the jurors would confess, that, after all, they were influenced by political prejudice...
...And Miss Rand's heroes are not supermen...
...To me it doesn't...
...DEAR EDITOR SACCO-VANZETTI It is, I suppose, to be expected that in his long retreat from radicalism James Rorty should eventually come to the conclusion that Sacco and Vanzetti were "in all probability guilty" ("This Is Our Agony ...," NL, September 26...
...Nathaniel Branden and Objectivists, substituting name-calling for rational arguments...
...An eloquent illustration of Manus' basic approach may be found in his report of Nathaniel Branden's lecture on free will...
...WILLIAM HENRY CHAMBERLIN...
...On examination, the unstated premise of his approach to philosophical criticism seems to be this: It is fine to acknowledge that there are crucial moral and political problems facing the world today, but it is necessarily irrational to offer any positive, definite solutions...
...What kind of argument is this...
...any individual accepting such a philosophy and rallying to its cause is to be considered a fanatic...
...Maybe this makes sense to him...
...Will you or my old friend James Rorty tell me in simple language what he really means to convey in his review of Sacco and Venzetti: The Murder and the Myth...
...Manus quotes one line of it—out of context...
...Firm conviction and commitment to a specific intellectual position must always be regarded as the product of dogmatism, power-lust and blind evasion...
...Or would Manus suggest that Miss Rand have exalted those peasants who have emerged from the hovels and hills of Russia, China and Cuba and, devoid of "paranoic" psychologies, brought about their brand of equality—equality of poverty and equality of slavery for 600 million human beings...
...His method is to attempt to ridicule by means of sarcastic personal comments about Miss Rand...
...The growing number of people who understand this will make impossible the unearned prestige of influence of those "intellectuals" who write mindless, unsubstantiated, emotional attacks on a philosophy they do not choose to understand...
...Why do they think it can lead to an "intellectual Renaissance...
...To Manus, a sneer may be a valid substitute for a syllogism—but to any rational reader a sneer will be regarded, not as refutation, but as a confession of the sneerer's own intellectual impotence...
...He refers to Miss Rand as the "Ultimate Female avenging herself on the male world," evading the fact that in Atlas Shrugged Miss Rand has created male heroes of unprecedented stature, and a heroine who is obviously, like Miss Rand herself, a man-worshipper in the most serious sense of the word...
...As for the name-calling in Manus' article, it brings to mind the child's rhyme, "sticks and stones will break my bones but names will never hurt me...
...The absurdity of his method is demonstrated in his attempt at amateur psychologizing...
...No testimony could be worth less than that of the jury as to whether its own verdict was disinterested...
...Why...
Vol. 43 • October 1960 • No. 40
