Media Spotlight on Objectivism

In recent weeks, Objectivism and Objectivists have been receiving a greatly increased level of media attention. "Doubtless this latest spate of recognition will wane somewhat," commented IOS executive director David Kelley. "But we've noticed that, after each new round of heightened attention to Objectivism, the level does not recede all the way back to where it was. And the next new round tends to come sooner and to involve more journalists."

The latest look at Objectivism began in February with numerous mentions of Kelley and his remarks on the ABC News Special "Greed with John Stossel." Then, in March, several pieces were stimulated by the Academy Award nomination that Michael Paxton's Ayn Rand: A Sense of Life garnered, and by the reporters' subsequent discovery that there is a forthcoming movie and play based on Barbara Branden's The Passion of Ayn Rand. (See "Sightings," on the next page.)

In the March 9, 1998, issue of U.S. News and World Report, reporter Marci McDonald gave a different slant to her four-page article and focused on the Objectivist movement itself. What she found, of course, was that those who admire Rand's philosophy have deep disagreements about how to advocate it and practice it, and so the piece was titled "Fighting over Ayn Rand." Among those associated with IOS and mentioned in the article were David Kelley, IOS trustee Ed Snider, and IOS advisor (and Reason Foundation president) Bob Poole.

"Marci McDonald did not discuss the philosophical foundations of our vision of Objectivism," Kelley says, "beyond quoting my opposition to 'religious zealotry.' But she didn't have to say much more because Leonard Peikoff made it unmistakably clear that he is a zealot. He asserted that his policy at the Ayn Rand Institute was to permit no deviations. And he delivered himself of a gratuitous and hysterical insult, apparently directed at everyone involved with the institute and with the Atlas celebration last fall."

Unfortunately, Kelley observes, McDonald went along with Peikoff's description of himself as a "purist." However, U.S. News and World Report recently published a letter from Kelley, which addresses that point: "Objectivism is a philosophy of reason and individualism. Those who would pervert it into a dogma that 'permits no deviations' should not be labeled 'purists.' The correct term is 'hypocrites.'"

Anyone seeking a lengthier explanation of the institute's position on the importance of open debate in Objectivism should purchase the monograph Truth and Toleration from Principal Source, the IOS book service. [Truth and Toleration is now The Contested Legacy of Ayn Rand and Principal Source is now The Objectivism Store]