Was Ayn Rand a psychopath?

Post Reply New Topic

http://michaelprescott.freeservers.com/ ... -cold.html
There are some things that suggest that she was, and some things that suggest that she wasn't, like her obsessive love for Nathaniel Branden.
I dunno. Certainly she wasn't the nicest of people, probably because of her horrible relationship with her mother, but does her nastiness rise to being a psychopath?

I think the technical term is "twisted Motherf***er". she's sad.

You know, she might be one of us! She might be on the spectrum.

Parts of her book The Fountainhead danced, like where the young man stood up to the College Dean. The Dean saying that he's dangerous. He assk, "To whom?"

But, in the middle of the book there's this dime store novel part in which Howard rapes Dominique (sp?), and somehow it's okay because he knows she really wants it. Wow. How cliched, how inaccurate, how harmful, and that part is dangerous. I mean, if you're going to write s&m, at least write good s&m with ping-ponging communication back and forth, and Rand did not do so.


(I read this book way back in the mid-1980s! One of my Aspie abilities is my ability to remember movies for long time periods, and I guess novels, too.)

If Rand really believed her own BS about selfishness as a virtue, and that caring for the least among us was tantamount to a sin, then she was certainly in the running as a psychopath.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

She was possibly a sociopath, i think psychopath is a little strong and does a disservice to the word.

While i strongly revile her politics and world view she no doubt had pronunced and very real experiences that inspired the views she had. Hailing from the Russian aristocracy her family were on the recieving end from the bolshevik revolution. Psychosis has nothing to do with that.

She was not a psychopath. She was a Russian. Sometimes it is difficult to tell the difference.

Rand hated the altruistic core of Christianity with a blue and purple passion.

She believed humans should be Heroic, not Compassionate.

I sympathize with her disdain for altruism, which I consider a disease.

ruveyn

Not at all. There is nothing psychopathic about rational selfishness. I have been practicing it for over half my life and I am as sane and as in touch with reality as an pinko stinko commie loving liberal altruist.

Christians who die for Christ are probably more crazy than those who prefer to stay a live.

There is nothing quite as mad as a martyr.

ruveyn

An odd duck for sure, but not a psycho. I'll echo the others in saying that much of her work has to be viewed through the prism of her experience with the Bolshevik revolution in Russia and her desire to help insure that no such thing would ever happen in her adopted homeland, a venture in which she was remarkably successful.

Well, there was that ONE book she wrote. I dunno.

I find Rand to be sort of heroic in that, while I disagree with her on Objectivism (which really isn't all that objective), she's not afraid to assert herself against liberal academic trends. I mean, really, if the university ideal is that we all be free-thinkers, etc., it stands to reason that the product of the university may possibly NOT follow the liberal ideals shoved down their throats in the classroom. I think true liberalism has to accept that, and too often self-proclaimed liberal academics don't. I think I was very fortunate to attend a predominantly liberal college that didn't judge its students espousing ideas and opinions that disagreed with those of their professors. My mentor, who I'd describe as a liberal-leaning moderate, chided me in private for not speaking out more often--my attitude towards school was that I was there to absorb everything it had to offer, not openly have it out with my professors. I'm attracted to Rand's boldness in that department, and it surprises me that some of her ideas or approaches aren't more popular with academics than they are.

Obviously I disagree with her on the relationship between reason and religion. I think theological conclusions are quite reasonable. But I also think she floundered on one significant point, and that was her frequent remark on being challenged to prove there is no God that "one cannot be called upon to prove a negative." Roll clip:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFYAITWOCuA[/youtube]

Her "reasoned" argument against the existence of a God is an argument from ignorance, so I can't really take anything else seriously after that. The "proving a negative" remark seems like a slam dunk, but it IS possible to prove a negative. For the other kinds of claims Ayn Rand has made, this is an egregious error for HER (of all people) to make.

I find her views on selfishness to be interesting. That's not an agree/disagree, but just "interesting." I personally have found it difficult trying to work with others and thus the only path to accomplishing many of my goals is the path I create rather than following an established path by another leader. People who disagree with me in seeking a common goal aren't really interested in the same goal as I am, and the best I can do is try to show them where they've gone wrong. When (not if) they fail, I can't sacrifice my standing on my own path for the sake of helping others who knowingly went down a path in error. As much as we hate it, that's just life. There are many sacrifices I'm willing to make for others and even my own family. But I'm generally unable to give up on something for the sake of someone else if I'm within reach of that goal. If I can complete what I start within a reasonable amount of time, there's always the possibility I can go back and help someone after completing an important task. But I can't be blamed for the messes people get themselves into.

That's really what I take from the Rand "selfishness as virtue" philosophy. I don't think it helps humanity for each individual to be CONSISTENTLY dedicated to his or her own tasks at the expense of others. I think self-sacrifice is more noble, but it's not always helpful and can even be downright foolish.

As an illustration, it's like when I drive down to Jackson, MS from time to time. County Line Road is a dangerous traffic area, always congested, and right in the middle of a major shopping area. It's not a good idea to make a turn anywhere else but at an intersection with a traffic light, not even a right turn. But people will always try it at the worst possible moments. What I will do is look around when traffic has come to a complete stop and see if anyone in front of me is trying to turn into my lane. I'll give them plenty of space and let them into traffic.

But I won't do it again for the rest of the day. I know good and well that if the roles were reversed I'd likely not get someone to be as nice to me. Not only that, but I can't help EVERYONE. It would be holding up traffic and setting up a dangerous situation in which there might be an accident. If I've done one thing nice for someone on County Line Road, it's someone else's turn to be nice.

I also think it's important to have Rand's self-confidence as well. Her recommendation of the "three A's--Aristotle, Aquinas, and Ayn Rand" reflects her firm commitment to her own beliefs. It makes sense to me. If I believe that I'm the best at what I do, I'm more likely to put my best effort into it. My music, for example... Sure, I know I only appeal to a niche audience, and I'm ok with that. The fact that one of my youtube videos has over 3,000 views in less than a year attests to the fact that I'm good at SOMETHING. If I've got a good thing going, why stop?

Last edited by AngelRho on 20 Sep 2012, 1:04 pm, edited 1 time in total.

We seem to be playing a bit fast and loose with the word, "psychopath."

Psychopathy has a meaning in psychiatry, and its diagnosis would be very problematic for a deceased individual who cannot be interviewed by a psychiatrist to make an assessment.

Did her interpersonal relationships demonstrate psychopathy? Was she charming? Did she have an inflated sense of self-worth? Was she a liar? Was she manipulative? We have no basis to know these things.

Was she affectively disordered? Did she attempt to deflect responsibility for her actions? Was she emotionally shallow? Did she lack empathy? We think we know the answer to this last one--but what she wrote and how she behaved in her personal life might well be two different things.

Was her lifestyle disordered? Was she parasitic? (She certainly received plenty of benefit from relatives, from de Mille, from Branden--but was she a parasite? That seems a stretch. Was she impulsive? Irresponsible? There's no real way to know.

Was she antisocial? There's certainly no implication of criminal behaviour on her part.

She was married to her husband for 50 years, and there is no suggestion that there was infidelity or pomiscuity.

On the whole, I would say that even if she believed and practiced every word that she ever wrote, all that would make her is an unpleasant person. Psychopathy requires demonstration of a disordered state that I don't believe is made out.

No, not a psychopath. Just a very unpleasant huckster.

She is thankfully pretty unheard of in the UK, though more so since we got the internet.

Mostly it's fun to watch people in the US embrace both their church and Rand, until I remember these people have often been put into office, and have some say in how the US is run.

Being wrong about one or a few things does not make you wrong about EVERYTHING. It is unbecoming of Christians to hate atheists.

I'm not saying Christians don't hate atheists or never hated atheists. Christians do a lot of things that is out of place for them. Ayn Rand was brilliant in many respects. She just didn't happen to be brilliant about everything.

I very much disagree that she was brilliant, except at marketing.

Her philosophy is antithetical to Christianity. To sincerely believe/follow both is cognitive dissonance at it's finest.

Maybe there is nothing quite a mad as a martyr, what's wrong with altruism? What's wrong with caring about the least among us? In the end, if not in the eyes of God, then in the eyes of your fellow man, you have a higher standing than the selfish and self centered.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

Hare Psychopathy Checklist

2 glib and superficial charm
2 grandiose (exaggeratedly high) estimation of self
2 need for stimulation
? pathological lying
2 cunning and manipulativeness
2 lack of remorse or guilt
2 shallow affect (superficial emotional responsiveness)
2 callousness and lack of empathy
? parasitic lifestyle
1 poor behavioral controls
2 sexual promiscuity
? early behavior problems
1 lack of realistic long-term goals
1 impulsivity
1 irresponsibility
2 failure to accept responsibility for own actions
1 many short-term marital relationships
? juvenile delinquency
0 revocation of conditional release
? criminal versatility
SCORE = 24
When properly completed by a qualified professional [edit anyone on the internet], the PCL-R provides a total score that indicates how closely the test subject matches the "perfect" score that a classic or prototypical psychopath would rate. Each of the twenty items is given a score of 0, 1, or 2 based on how well it applies to the subject being tested. A prototypical psychopath would receive a maximum score of 40, while someone with absolutely no psychopathic traits or tendencies would receive a score of zero. A score of 30 or above qualifies a person for a diagnosis of psychopathy. People with no criminal backgrounds normally score around 5. Many non-psychopathic criminal offenders score around 22.

Answer no Ayn Rand is not apparently a Sociopath just a horrible person.
Unless some of those ?s should be 2s.
Does anyone no if she was a Juvenile Delinquent or a Pathological liar ?

Considering I am currently at (total) war with JakobVirgil in another thread it would be against my self interest to support him, but this post makes the point. Psychopathy might be some loose term to most people, but it has been the subject of substantial research (including top tier scientific journals like Science, Nature and PNAS) for decades. Robert Hare's PCL-R remains the predominant scale for determining psychopathy, although David Cooke has some (in my opinion relevant) objections against the PCL-R. However, since I lack the capability of providing a realistic alternative, I will stick to the current establishment...