Letter From Linda Reardan - To Friends Of Objectivism
Letter From Linda Reardan - To Friends Of Objectivism
November 10, 1995
Dear Friend of Objectivism:
You have probably heard that last year Leonard Peikoff and the Ayn Rand Institute ended their association with George Reisman and his wife, Edith Packer, on the grounds of alleged irrational behavior by the Reismans. I was a student and associate of Drs. Packer, Reisman, and Peikoff, and of Harry Binswanger and Peter Schwartz for many years, and I observed firsthand the actions of all of them over the sixteen months leading up to their break. For example, I spoke to Dr. Peikoff about this issue approximately twelve times from July 1993 to October 1994.
Based on these experiences, I have concluded that ARI's current leaders do not deserve my support. While it is impossible for me to convey to you all of the concrete evidence that led me to this conclusion, I must try to tell you what I know: Not just Peter and Harry but especially Leonard Peikoff have behaved in a manner that is arbitrary, emotionalistically self-defensive, and authoritarian. (By contrast, George and Edith acted throughout this dispute with complete commitment to facts and with utmost dignity.) Moreover, in the way they are running the Objectivist Graduate Center, these men may well be harming aspiring Objectivist intellectuals more than they are helping them.
First, here is a chronological summary of the events, as I observed them, that culminated in Leonard’s declaring George and Edith to be immoral. Referring to this summary can help you to order in your mind the evidence I will give you.
Spring 1993
Edith and George have had strained relations with Peter and with Mike Berliner for several years, while they have been friends with Leonard, and close friends with Harry, for decades. In conversations with me, Peter denigrates George’s and Edith's intellectual accomplishments, and Harry states that he thinks the OGC should be, not an adjunct to established graduate schools, but a substitute for them.
Summer/Fall 1993
Edith and George make criticisms to Mike, Leonard, and Harry about possible conflicts of interest on the part of Peter, and about Harry’s ideas about the OGC. Leonard, too, criticizes Harry’s plans for the OGC, but refuses to get involved any further.
October 1993
Mike sends out a memo to the ARI Board of Advisors asking for feedback on Harry’s and Peter’s proposed salaries for the first semester of the OGC. George, Edith, and Jerry Kirkpatrick send memos to ARI and its Board criticizing the apparent plans for the OGC.
November 1993
George and Edith are expelled from the ARI Board of Advisors, with Leonard’s approval. He writes a private letter to Edith and George saying that he hopes that his personal and professional relationship with them can continue as before, but that he will terminate it if they become “active enemies” of ARI. Later in the month, Leonard softens his position, telling me (and the ARI Board of Advisors) that he regards the dispute between the Reismans and Peter, Mike, and Harry as a matter of clashing personalities and strategies. I try to convince him to hear Edith’s and George’s side of the dispute but he refuses.
Winter/Spring 1994
Leonard makes Peter and Harry expand the Board of Directors (one of the main points George and Edith were arguing for). In the hope that the new board will help to control Peter and Harry, and that Leonard is beginning to face ARI's problems, Edith and George convey no further criticisms of ARI. In May, Harry writes a memo saying that no Objectivist should promote George's pamphlet on socialized medicine.
August 1994
The ARI Board votes to terminate ARI’s association with The Jefferson School. Leonard refuses to get involved (even while he continues to plan on speaking at TJS’s 1995 conference).
September 1994
The phone conference among Leonard, George, Edith, Harry, Peter, and Mike takes place, during which Leonard declares George and Edith to be immoral.
November 1994
George sends out a letter to many Objectivists, explaining why TJS’s 1995 conference will be cancelled, and defending Edith and himself against Leonard’s, Peter’s, and Harry's charges against them.
I offer four points for your consideration:
1) Leonard, Peter, and Harry have engaged in a pattern of authoritarianism, answering those who question their judgment not with arguments but with expulsion or threats.
The primary example of this behavior is their treatment of George and Edith. For George's account of this, I refer you to his letter of November 15, 1994. (To receive a copy of his letter, see the postscript of Jerry Kirkpatrick’s letter of November 10, 1995, which accompanies the present letter.) As Dr. Reisman summarizes his letter: "The essence of the situation is that Peter Schwartz and Harry Binswanger do not want to answer to criticisms..., and, we are sorry to say, that Leonard Peikoff does not want them to have to answer either. Because they do not want to admit this, they have decided to get rid of us, by declaring us to be immoral.”
My own treatment by these three men confirms George’s statement. Last October, at the urging of Harry, Peter, and Mike Berliner, Leonard gave me the following ultimatum: Either apologize to Harry, Mike, and Peter for criticizing them or be expelled from Leonard’s Objectivist Graduate Center seminar. The criticisms Leonard referred to are those contained in my letter of November 13, 1993, a copy of which is attached. At the time that Leonard gave me this ultimatum, he considered me one of his top students. Only a few weeks earlier, he had written (in a Preface to the written version of his History of Philosophy Lecture Series, which I am editing) "Based on my recognition of Linda Reardan’s knowledge and integrity, I have every reason to believe that the editorial changes she makes will be true to the lectures’ essential content"; around the same time, he explicitly told me he thought I had great potential as an Objectivist philosopher. As for Harry, Peter, and Mike, ARI had used my accomplishments in letters to contributors as an example of the success of their graduate training program. Yet all four of these men were willing to expel me merely for believing the criticisms I made in my letter. I had pursued both Harry and Leonard, trying to get them to refute my criticisms, but neither of them gave me any reason to think I had been mistaken. As the price of admittance to the OGC, I was being required to sacrifice my own judgment.1
Similar evidence of such authoritarianism on the part of Leonard and ARI occurred two months later, in December 1994. In October, Leonard had told me that my admiration for George and Edith was not why he was expelling me from the OGC. At that time, though he had told me his reasons for saying they were immoral, he recognized that I might be justified in disagreeing with those reasons. However, after George’s letter came out, Leonard changed his mind. Besides myself, there were two other OGC students informed at the time, by the Reismans and Dr. Peikoff, of both sides of the dispute. One of these had taken the position that the evidence provided by Harry, Mike, Peter, and Leonard against George and Edith was totally unconvincing. In December, Mike Berliner (who would not have done this without Harry’s and Leonard’s encouragement) told this student that ARI would give him no further benefits unless he took a stand against the Reismans. (The student told me this himself; regrettably, he complied with their demand.)2
2) How do they rationalize their authoritarianism? Leonard regards himself as somehow equivalent to Objectivism, and Harry and Peter as his designated lieutenants in this respect. For their parts, Peter and Harry have eagerly accepted this view of things. The most blatant example of this point was reported in George’s letter, but it bears repeating. In July 1994, Leonard, knowing that Jerry Kirkpatrick and I had lost all respect for Harry and Peter, said these exact words to me, as a warning: “Rejection of Peter and Harry is rejection of me, because I support them; and rejection of me is rejection of Objectivism.”
Here are a few other examples of this attitude:
(a) In November 1993, the week after George, Edith, and Jerry sent their memos to the ARI Board of Advisors criticizing the plans for the OGC, George and Edith were dismissed from the Board of Advisors. The dismissal was effected by a memo to the advisors from Harry and Peter, stating that in their view, the contents of Edith’s and George's memos “do not convey mere disagreements with Board decisions, disagreements which could be rationally discussed among rational people.” The memo was accompanied by a statement of agreement from Leonard Peikoff, saying also that he fully supported the plans for the OGC, because he, Harry, and Peter were the three most qualified people to "hand polish” the Objectivist teachers of the future (as Ayn Rand had hand polished Leonard), and that "the greatest interest of Objectivism is to grab onto [such people] and pay whatever it takes to get them to [do this] full-time....”
Notice what this means. The mission of ARI is to spread Objectivism. George and Edith suggested that there would be better ways to spend $50,000 than flying Harry and Peter out to California to teach seven students for one semester. In the minds of Harry, Peter, and Leonard, this makes George and Edith unfit as advisors to ARI. Why? They were questioning the setup of Harry and Peter (and, Leonard thought, himself) as being of unlimited monetary value in the spread of Objectivism.
(b) Leonard, Harry, et al. believe that contributors and associates of ARI have no right to any input into its activities. In September 1993, Harry stated the following to George and Edith (and said that Edith could write down his words): "1 don’t care about the opinions of the Board of Advisors or of the contributors. I can do what I want because I have the power and deserve to have it." Moreover, the idea in my letter of November 13, 1993, that Leonard most objected to was my agreement with Jerry that ARI’s directors were "agents of the contributors...." He called this "demeaning” to the directors (and again, considered my refusal to apologize for it reason to expel me from the OGC). In other words, contributors are mere money providers, to be humored and placated, but not consulted, because Peter and Harry, as appointees of Leonard, could have nothing to learn from answering to those who pay the bills. (In light of this attitude toward contributors, it should be noted that at the same time that they attacked Jerry’s character for having written his memos criticizing them, they implemented several of his suggestions.)
(c) Edith Packer’s pamphlets further the application of Objectivism, in an important way, to the field of psychology. Jerry Kirkpatrick’s book In Defense of Advertising: Arguments from Reason, Ethical Egoism, and Laissez-Faire Capitalism is filled with Objectivism and is receiving significant notice from non-Objectivist intellectuals. George Reisman’s Capitalism: A Treatise on Economics, to be published in 1996, is a historic achievement in economics by a man who is resented even by most Austrian economists because of his support for Ayn Rand. Yet the institute whose mission is to spread Ayn Rand's philosophy apparently will promote none of these works. Why? Edith, Jerry, and George have criticized Leonard, Peter, and Harry; therefore, according to Leonard, Peter, and Harry, their writings cannot be of value to the spread of Objectivism.
ARI has even refused to promote the written version of Leonard Peikoff’s History of Philosophy lecture series, now being published by The Jefferson School. Apparently, Peter, Harry, and Leonard think that Leonard’s work also is not valuable to the spread of Objectivism, so long as the people selling it are critics of Peter, Harry, and Leonard.
These men are soliciting money from Ayn Rand’s admirers under the claim that they are conscientiously working to promote her ideas. But they put the protection of themselves from criticism above the spread of knowledge about her philosophy and its applications.
3) Leaving aside Peter and Harry (whose characters I believe already to have been exposed by their memos which George attached to his letter), Leonard Peikoff exhibited irresponsibility, cynicism, and evasion.
(a) One major example of Leonard’s irresponsibility is the fact that he refused, for years, to be bothered with any complaints about his associates at ARI, saying that he was too busy or that his health couldn’t take it. This alone is not wrong; what is wrong is that while abdicating in this way, he retained control over ARI and continued to give it his unqualified support.
A blatant example was his saying to me in August 1994, after ARI’s Board voted not to promote The Jefferson School, “I can’t control what Peter and Harry do.” (This was his excuse to me not to have to defend their action.) Then, a few weeks later, he said to Jerry and me, "1 have complete veto power, by charter, over everything ARI does.”
Another example occurred when Edith and George tried, in September 1993, to complain to Leonard about Harry’s statement "1 have the power" and about other things. Leonard answered that his health could not endure such conflicts, and that he didn’t want to hear any criticisms unless it was a matter of someone explicitly repudiating the basic principles of Objectivism. Then, when Edith and George were dismissed from ARI’s Board of Advisors, Leonard wrote a private letter to them, which began: "I sincerely regret that things have come to their present stage after our many long years of friendship and cooperation. You apparently did not feel it necessary to inform or consult with me before issuing your blasts against the OGC. And I accordingly have responded directly, without contacting you first." This, only a few weeks after refusing to hear any criticisms from them. (And notice the word "blasts,” an example of Leonard’s emotionalistic self-defensiveness.)
Moreover, the latter is only one instance of the fact that Leonard acted throughout this entire dispute while listening to Peter, Mike, and Harry, but never asking to hear Edith’s and George’s side of the disagreements. And then (as he told me later), just prior to the conference call at which he declared them immoral, he came to the conclusion that Edith was immoral. Why? Upon reading Harry's memo to him (the one attached to George’s letter), it “just came together" for him that Edith was immoral (and therefore, George was immoral too because he supports Edith). If this is not an irresponsible way of judging the character of any person, let alone of two people who have done so much to promote Objectivism, I don’t know what is.
(b) Leonard’s cynicism has been noticed in recent years by many students in his public lectures. But let me give you two examples of how his cynicism affects his personal conduct. In late August 1994, Jerry and I had dinner with Leonard to discuss our criticisms of ARI. When I admitted to Leonard that I thought it was a battle of the achievers (George and Edith) versus the secondhanders (Peter, Harry, and Mike), Leonard responded not by defending Peter, Harry, and Mike, but by saying, “How old are you? I would expect that from someone in her twenties, but in your thirties?!” I.e., he implied that I was immature for believing that any real-life people actually lived up to the principles of Objectivism. In October 1994, a few days after Leonard declared George and Edith to be immoral, George asked him, “How can you say that we are immoral but still Objectivists?" (which was the position Leonard had taken). Leonard replied, "Well, technically, if you act immorally then that implies that you are contradicting Objectivism. But if I were to go by that standard, there would be nobody left in Objectivism.” (That’s what he thinks of his associates.)
(c) Most of the examples I have already given are also clear examples of evasion. But in case these are not enough, here are a few more.
At Jerry’s and my above-mentioned dinner with him, Leonard had no interest in discussing our criticisms with us (though this was the stated purpose of the dinner), only in trying to silence us by any means possible, including logical fallacy after logical fallacy. For example, he said, "Doesn’t it mean anything to you that ARI’s Board voted unanimously to ostracize TJS?” And Leonard's fallback “argument” was the threat to denounce us as enemies of Objectivism should we make our criticisms public. Moreover, the only defense he gave of Peter’s and Harry’s campaign to destroy TJS was to say, in sympathy with Peter and Harry, “Nobody likes to be criticized.”
Also at this dinner, I told Leonard that Peter Schwartz had lied to me in November 1993. On the weekend of Ford Hall Forum, Peter said to me about Jerry’s memos, "How dare Jerry imply that we would be so irresponsible as to act illegally?," stating too that a lawyer had confirmed to him and Harry that their receiving money from ARI was legal. I learned a few days later from Ed Locke that the same day Peter spoke to me, he admitted to Dr. Locke that technically the Board of Directors had been illegal. (Typically of Peter, notice that while lying to me, he exuded moral outrage against Jerry, for stating the truth.) Leonard’s response to this was that Peter was justified in lying to me, because Peter saw Jerry and me as his enemies.
Let me make this last point clear. Edith first tried in July to tell Mike Berliner about the legal issue, and he ignored her. She and George then told Harry in September and he ignored them. Then Leonard refused to hear any criticisms. So (in response to ARI’s request for feedback on salaries for Peter and Harry) George, Edith, and Jerry wrote to the ARI Board of Advisors about it. Therefore, according to Leonard and apparently Peter, Peter is justified in considering Jerry and me as enemies of ARI, and lying to me – to cover up his own endangerment of ARI.
In early October 1994, Leonard invited me, Gary Hull, and Dave Harriman to his house to explain to us his reasons for declaring Edith and George to be immoral (which, I have to say, were utterly specious). When I, in a respectful and quiet manner, questioned his reasons, Leonard yelled me down and, as both Dave and Gary commented afterwards, was close to throwing me out of his house.
What were Leonard’s reasons? Here they are, in the form that I wrote them down shortly after this meeting: "Leonard’s four reasons for declaring Edith immoral: (1) She made everyone’s (Leonard’s, Mike's, and Ed Snider's) life miserable when she was a director of ARI [from 1985 to 1986]. She wanted power. (2) Leonard [in the mid- 80’s] was going to her for therapy and he and Cynthia [his wife at the time] started to feel Edith was encroaching on their lives. Then Cynthia said Edith said to her something like, ‘I could help Leonard get rid of his rationalism if he let me edit his writing.’ That was the last straw. Leonard thought ‘she wants to take over my work too.’ (3) Regarding Edith's and George's October 1993 memos to the Board of Advisors about the OGC, Leonard said, 'I think too much of their intelligence to believe that they could have written such stupid things honestly.’ (4) Regarding the conference call (among Leonard, Edith, George, Harry, Mike, and Peter) in September 1994: Edith was accused of putting people on her ‘shit list.’ She didn’t respond by saying, 'That’s false, that’s ridiculous.’ Rather, she said something like, ‘They can’t prove that,’ and ‘I can’t defend myself because anything I say they’ll say I learned that in therapy,' which last Leonard said had to be interpreted as a threat. Therefore, Edith was evading.”
Here are brief answers to these accusations: (1) Edith has told me that the real reason Leonard asked her to resign from the ARI Board of Directors was as follows. During ARI’s first year, both Edith and Leonard thought that Mike was not doing a very good job. While Edith let Mike know what she thought, Leonard did not. Leonard asked Arline Mann if she would take over Mike’s job as executive director, but Arline declined. So the next day, Leonard said to Edith, "You cannot get along with Mike, and he’s the only one I have to do the job, so you have to resign.” Shortly after this, when Peter Schwartz accused Edith of being the only one who was critical of Mike, Edith told Peter that Leonard had been critical too and had sought a replacement for Mike. When Peter went to Leonard for confirmation of this, Leonard's response was to be furious with Edith for telling anyone, because, as Leonard said to George, “Now I’ll have to tell Mike what I did." Apparently, this is what Leonard means by Edith’s having made his life “miserable”: that by telling the truth, she made him have to take responsibility for his actions. (2) Edith replies that at that time she held Leonard in such high esteem that, in her wildest dreams, it would not have occurred to her that she should edit Leonard. In fact, she was paying Leonard to edit her speeches. The only editorial comment she made to him was when he read his “Medicine: the Death of a Profession” speech to her, at the end of which she asked him, "What are DRG’s?” (Leonard hit the ceiling over her question, but then added an explanation of DRG’s to his speech.) Further, of course, Leonard’s and Cynthia’s feeling that Edith was encroaching on their lives is zero evidence that Edith did anything wrong. The implication is rather that they considered themselves to be passively receiving her advice, rather than independently judging the advice and self-responsibly choosing whether or not to follow it. (3) This charge you can judge for yourself, since the memos are publicly available as an attachment to George’s letter of November 15, 1994. I would also point out that, in making this statement, Leonard contradicted his earlier statement, made to me and to ARI's Board of Advisors a few weeks after he first read Edith's and George's memos, that he regarded the dispute between them and Harry, Peter, and Mike as a matter of clashing personalities and strategies, and not a matter of irrationality or dishonesty on the part of George and Edith. (4) This last accusation is simply a blatant non sequitur.
A few weeks after Leonard gave me these reasons, when he expelled me from his seminar, I said something about his having given no evidence that Edith was immoral. He answered scornfully, "Oh, I know you pride yourself on going by facts and evidence.” When I said, "Isn’t that a good thing to pride myself on?,” he replied, "But you can’t even know what is a fact except by reference to the other ideas you hold.” (Notice the Hegelian, coherence theory of truth here.) "You remind me,” he went on, “of those people who wouldn't believe that Russia was communist because they hadn't been there themselves.” I responded, “But I’ve been to Russia,” meaning that I know Edith very well. He then changed the subject and shortly thereafter dismissed me with the statement that he did not have the patience to try to convince me of my errors. Either I write a letter of apology in the next few days or I was expelled.
Finally, of course, there is the public evasion engaged in over the last year by Leonard and ARI's other leaders about their actions against the Reismans. The answer by ARI to queries from (at least some) contributors has been that it is a "private matter.” Thus, ARI’s leaders have declared Edith and George to be immoral but refuse to defend or even own up to their declaration. Moreover, they have done this as trustees of your money in the name of Ayn Rand, and they’re telling you it’s none of your business.
4) As my last point, I want to explain the role of the Objectivist Graduate Center in this dispute. The main reason George, Edith, Jerry, and I were outraged in the summer/fall of 1993 about the plans for the OGC was Harry’s explicit statement that he regarded the OGC as a school that students could go to instead of graduate school.
I hope you can see that such an approach to the OGC would be disastrous to ARI’s goal of nurturing the careers of Objectivist intellectuals. What Objectivism needs, if its influence is to spread, is independent intellectuals who thoroughly understand both Objectivism and their own fields of study. Then they need to write articles and books showing other thinkers in their field the power of the Objectivist premises and method to solve the problems in and advance that field of study.
This, of course, is a demanding task. It requires years of intensive study of Objectivism and of one’s chosen area of knowledge, involving the constant attempt to integrate the two. It also means that graduate training is the most important task that ARI could possibly accomplish, because there is no program in established universities where one can receive instruction in Objectivism. At the same time, however, the training that current Objectivist intellectuals are capable of providing is very delimited (and much more so, I might add, when George, Edith, and Jerry are excluded from the faculty). If aspiring Objectivist intellectuals are to accomplish anything with their lives, they must learn what non-Objectivist thinkers in their field have to offer. No matter how badly mixed such offerings are, there is no alternative but to sort it all out, learn as much as one can, and find the opportunities to introduce Objectivism into the field.
Of course, I have not even mentioned the equally significant issue that generally the only feasible career for a serious intellectual is a college teaching job, which of course requires a PhD from an established university. In this way one can work fulltime as an intellectual, learn a tremendous amount from teaching, and have half of one’s working time to write, as well as the credentials required to publish.
The above is why attending the OGC without at the same time attending graduate school in one’s chosen field is a dead end. Objectivism alone is not enough; and a student cannot even learn Objectivism properly without a real-life purpose that he is working towards.
Let me say, also, that Harry Binswanger partly helped me to learn these points. When I was a student in his ARI seminar (from 1987 to 1990), he often emphasized Ayn Rand’s statement that the battleground for Objectivism is in the universities, and held that we had to find some way both to preserve our minds and to make careers for ourselves in academia. In fact, he viewed this as the essential purpose of his seminar – to train us in Objectivism, especially its method of thinking, and to guide us through our PhD’s and job searches.
So you can imagine my shock and concern when Harry told me that he was abandoning this approach in starting the OGC. When I asked him why, all he did was cite two examples of professors he regarded as once having been committed Objectivists but as having been corrupted by their pursuit of careers in academia. I then gave some examples of people who had not been corrupted, one of whom was George Reisman. To this, Harry responded, “But why should George have to teach Pepperdine students when he could be teaching Objectivists at the OGC?” Of course, this completely sidesteps my criticism of his claim that Objectivists will be corrupted by academia. I also asked him what the students would do with their knowledge of Objectivism if they had no PhD, to which he responded, incredibly, that the students could teach at the OGC too.
I told Jerry, Edith, and George about this conversation, and Edith decided that Leonard must be informed of it (despite his standing order not to be bothered). Leonard was initially upset by Harry’s statement, and said that making the OGC an alternative to academia would amount to trying to turn Objectivism into a cult. He agreed to speak to Harry, Peter, and Mike. After his conversation with them, he told me that it had been just an idea of Harry’s, which Peter never agreed with, and ARI was not really going to follow. Leonard also added, however, that it was not a totally unreasonable idea after all.
So Harry still believed that the OGC should be a substitute for academia, and Leonard was now being wishy-washy about it. This is the main reason George, Edith, and Jerry thought it imperative to involve the Board of Advisors in the plans for the OGC. But their attempt to do this, as you know, led immediately to George’s and Edith’s dismissal from the Board of Advisors.
If you care about the future of Objectivism enough to contribute to ARI, you have an absolute obligation to make sure that Harry, Peter, and Mike do not encourage OGC students to drop out of graduate school. These men will probably deny that they are doing so, but I have heard otherwise. For example, to be a regular student at the OGC (as opposed to merely an auditor), it is now required that one attend the OGC fulltime – which means that the students have little time to pursue their graduate studies. I also know that last year ARI encouraged several students to move from Texas, where they were attending graduate school, to New York City to attend the OGC.
Further, the OGC faculty exhibits an approach toward life that is harmful to their students. Namely, they view knowledge of Objectivism as an end in itself rather than as a stepping stone to independent achievements. Their focus is not on pushing back frontiers in their respective fields. Rather, they spend their time resting on their laurels and making up out-of-context reasons to denounce anyone they feel threatened by. The only kind of “talent” they prospect for is people deferential towards them; if someone, such as George Reisman, rises above their level of achievement, they don’t want him around.
Surely, you may think, this does not apply to Leonard – after all, isn’t he a talented teacher and writer, and doesn't he want achievement from his students? The answer, unfortunately, is that the overriding thing Leonard wants from his students (and associates) is that they admiringly accept everything he says. I used to do that, which is why he resisted for a while Harry’s and Peter’s request that he expel me from his seminar. But I started finding faults in him, so he ejected me. Moreover, in the very process of giving me his reasons for declaring George immoral (and thus going along with Peter’s and Harry’s wish to get rid of George), Leonard said, "In terms of a theoretical mind, George Reisman is the best thing that could have happened to Objectivism." There is no better example of how little Leonard cares anymore for achievement. Nor did Leonard care when I reminded him, the last time I saw him, that while he teaches Objectivism as an abstract theory, it is Edith Packer who, more than any other living person, teaches people how to practice Ayn Rand’s philosophy in their own lives, to achieve happiness.
Because they view knowledge of Objectivism as an end in itself, not as a means to accomplish something in the larger world, Harry’s and Peter’s acute tendency toward rationalism continues to get worse. Leonard used to criticize them and to be a stopper to their rationalism, but he no longer bothers. Nor is Leonard bothering anymore to be self-critical of his own rationalism and other errors. You can find several examples of this above. And it is affecting his teaching. In his OGC seminar, I heard him contradict Ayn Rand’s writings on more than one occasion. For example, in analyzing a student’s confusions about how to judge people, Leonard said that, in his experience, one member of a married couple is almost always of a significantly higher moral character than the other, so that the character of a person’s spouse says little about the person’s own character. (Cf. Francisco’s speech on sex.)
From what I have heard, the lectures Leonard gave on moral judgment in August 1995 provide another example of the decline of his teaching, as well as of his authoritarianism and evasion. He considered a case in which a person has two friends, each of whom he greatly respects, but who have accused one another of immorality. Leonard mentioned no names, but it was clear that he intended his audience to apply the case to themselves, and to consider as their two friends, Leonard vs. George and Edith. Leonard went on to suppose that each of the friends openly states his evidence against the other, with each one contradicting the other on every point, so that the two friends’ statements add up to nothing when taken together. First, notice that even this much is already an evasion on Leonard's part, because in the real-life case, the two "friends" have not accused one another of immorality; rather, Leonard accused, and George and Edith defended themselves. Moreover, for Leonard to imply that he has openly stated his evidence against George and Edith to the members of his audience is just a lie. George and Edith laid bare the charges against them and answered them straightforwardly; Leonard has offered no public justification for his attack on them. Yet there is more. Leonard went on to imply that the members of his audience should choose his side, regardless of the complete lack of evidence against George and Edith, simply because it should be obvious that Leonard Peikoff has a higher moral character than the Reismans. Moreover, he said, if you don’t do this, if you continue to demand evidence, you are an "agnostic” and thus you, too, are immoral. This is nothing but an appeal to authority in place of facts combined with an argument from intimidation.
With regard to the administration of ARI, Leonard has allowed himself to become no more than a puppet of Peter and Harry. Every once in a while he asserts his veto power over them (e.g., by making them expand the Board of Directors-which they did by adding only people who defer to them). But years ago he stopped putting forth the effort of rational judgment in overseeing Institute activities. And so he supports Peter and Harry in whatever they do, while contributors put trust in them mainly because contributors respect Leonard’s past accomplishments and think he is controlling them.
The only, slight hope for the near-term future of ARI is that enough of its contributors will demand that ARI’s leaders radically change their ways. Of course, these leaders may very well answer your questioning of them the same way they answered us: first by evasion, and then, if you press it, by ostracizing you. If they do, you won’t need me to tell you that ARI's current leadership does not deserve your support.
Sincerely yours,
Linda Reardan
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1 For completeness, let me say that Leonard also demanded my apology for a statement I made in another letter, namely, one of June 12, 1994, to Bob Stubblefield, publisher of The Intellectual Activist. My statement was: “I could edit under threat of a veto by Leonard because I respect his philosophic judgment; but there is no way I can edit under threat of a veto by Harry Binswanger (or Peter Schwartz)." I explained to Leonard that the context for my statement was that Bob had refused to publish excerpts I had prepared from George's pamphlet "The Real Right to Medical Care.” Harry had written a memo arguing that neither ARI nor any Objectivist should promote this pamphlet. I considered his arguments to be complete sophistry, and I believed Bob Stubblefield to be motivated by fear of acting against Harry's memo. (As a result of this situation, I resigned my post as editor of TIA.) I think you can see that Leonard's demand that I apologize for my statement is further evidence of his authoritarianism. His premise is: Unless I am willing to submit my work to Harry (or Peter) for approval, I am not to be allowed to study at the OGC. (If you want to read this memo of Harry’s, I suggest that you ask ARI for a copy of it, since it was written in Harry's capacity as director of ARI.)
I must add that Harry was not the only one to use his position at ARI to try to intimidate people into boycotting George's and Edith's work In November 1993, Peter Schwartz had tried to get Bob to stop publishing articles by Edith. Peter lost that battle – temporarily-when I threatened to resign, George threatened to withdraw his articles too, and Bob found out that (contrary to what Peter had let Bob think) at that time only Peter, not Leonard, was opposed to TIA’s publishing Edith. In fact, Leonard did not care (!) whether TlA published Edith, even though, as he told me both before and afterwards, he regarded Edith's works as valuable (and at that time he explicitly said he had nothing against Edith).
2 This student at least waited to be threatened; the other informed OGC student, namely Gary Hull, did not. Rather, after being highly critical, to me and other of his friends, of Peter, Harry, Mike, and especially Leonard, and supportive of Edith and George, Gary turned on a dime as soon as he realized Leonard had taken a stand.
If Peter, Harry, Mike and Leonard require you to denounce George, Edith, and anyone who supports them, show some courage and ask that they give you proof of their charges against George and Edith, allowing you to judge for yourself. OGC students could be a major force in getting ARI’s leaders to change their ways – the OGC is nowhere without students. Try to make them give you what you need: focussed training in Objectivism plus the freedom to come to your own conclusions and to forge your own path in life.