Chronicles magazine published an article by Justin Raimondo titled ‘Who Is Henry Galt? Ayn Rand and Plagiarism’. That article seems like more of a hit piece than a genuine, unbiased attempt to figure out whether Rand plagiarized anyone. But at least it serves as a case study of smear tactics. Read it first, then continue here.

[A]fter the birth of the organized Randian movement, which she insisted on calling “Objectivism,” […]

Did she insist? I don’t recall any insistence. All I’m aware of is an announcement of the name in a 1960 preface to her book For the New Intellectual, where she writes:

For reasons which are made clear in the following pages, the name I have chosen for my philosophy is Objectivism.

That means she gave reasons and arguments, whereas “insisted” would mean she irrationally stuck with the term despite a lack of reasoning or in the face of unaddressed criticism. I’m not aware of any evidence that that’s what she did. If Raimondo has criticisms of the name, why not just mention them?

Also note how Raimondo calls objectivism a “movement” rather than a philosophy. A movement, according to the The American Heritage Dictionary, is merely an “organized effort by supporters of a common goal”, which is a definition the word ‘cult’ meets, too. (We’ll soon see that Raimondo is really thinking of the word ‘cult’ and wants the reader to think of it, too.) But a philosophy is a “system of thought” and, unlike a cult, is legitimate. Objectivism is a philosophy, as the quote of Rand above clarifies. Worse, the word “organized” in Raimondo’s phrasing “organized Randian movement” makes it reminiscent of organized crime! These are a bunch of outrageous smears in just 14 words.

Raimondo says Rand’s philosophy is “politically indistinguishable from many on the extreme right […].” Read: ‘Rand was a Nazi.’ But as a champion of individual rights, she was the opposite.

In the Randian Cultural Revolution, nothing and no one was spared—with the single exception of Aristotle, the only thinker to whom she ever acknowledged an intellectual debt.

She was very clear about Victor Hugo being a major source of inspiration for her. (She mentions him dozens of times in The Romantic Manifesto.) And likening her philosophy to the actual, Maoist cultural revolution is grossly misleading and insulting because her philosophy condemned communism. If Raimondo’s aim is to accuse Rand of hypocrisy, this isn’t the way to do it.

Raimondo claims Rand plagiarized “Mencken, Nock, Rose Wilder Lane, Chodorov, [and] Isabel Paterson” but doesn’t provide a single quote of theirs to show any real similarities let alone plagiarism.

While it is plausible that two different authors could come up with a similar name for their main character, and even; that the two novels might express similar themes, it is too much to believe that use of the same rhetorical device could: also have occurred by happenstance.

What’s with all the extra punctuation?

At one point he goes out into the field,; to research his reorganization plan.: […]

Same issue. I see the article is from 1992, so maybe the magazine scanned it and it’s an issue of optical character recognition (OCR). But it was still on whoever published the scan to correct the mistakes.

The official version of the origins of Dominique, as given by Barbara Branden, is that the character was arrived at “by introspection.”

Source? Is this still from The Passion of Ayn Rand? Or is it from Who is Ayn Rand??

“Dominique,” said Rand, “is myself in a bad mood.”

Source?

The[] only question is whether this was a conscious He on Rand’s part.

Raimondo presumably wrote ‘lie’ but the OCR turned the ‘li’ into ‘H’.

It was only later, after the founding of the Randian cult, […]

Well, at least the smears are more open and honest now. As I indicated above, that’s what he meant by “movement” all along.

For it is the exact opposite of her own literary aesthetic, which dictated that the Randian pantheon be peopled by gods and heroes, unencumbered by such unromantic phenomena as mothers, wives, and children.

As I recall, Rearden has to deal with a demanding and ungrateful wife and mother in Atlas Shrugged. And “dictated” gives more unjustified cult-like impressions.

While not technically plagiarism in the legal sense, […]

Not a lawyer but I’m not aware that plagiarism is a legal issue, at least not in the US.

I see more issues with Raimondo’s article but these are the main ones, I think. Raimondo’s central assertion, that Rand committed not technically plagiarism but still “intellectual fraud” by not crediting the (alleged) main inspiration for her novel Atlas Shrugged, namely Garet Garrett’s 1922 novel The Driver, and by “denying not only her own past, but also the value of any and all tradition”, is poorly argued. Yes, the parallels between The Driver and Atlas Shrugged are suspicious but could be attributed to cryptomnesia, as is alleged to have happened with Nabokov’s Lolita, down to the girl’s name, parts of the story, similarities between characters, and underlying themes. In addition, I doubt that Rand really denied the value of tradition. She was certainly opposed to tradition in the sense of tribalism, but not “any and all tradition”. For example, she rejected retroactive law as being “contrary to the entire tradition of Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence.”¹ That means she saw value in this tradition. She also bemoaned the United States abandoning its own political philosophy and civilized tradition:

The United States—history’s magnificent example of a country created by political theorists—has abandoned its own philosophy and is falling apart. As a nation, we are splintering into warring tribes which—only by the fading momentum of a civilized tradition—are called “economic pressure groups,” at present.

She shows her respect to the Founding Fathers and, once again, sees value in the country’s history and “civilized tradition”. In her essays ‘Man’s Rights’ and ‘The Nature of Government’, she again appeals to, and praises, the Founding Fathers and the American political tradition.

There are some instances in Rand’s work where explicit credit would have been appropriate, such as:

Truth is the recognition of reality. (This is known as the correspondence theory of truth.)

The words “is known as” hint that what’s to come isn’t Rand’s original idea but only a reference. She presumably thought specifically of Alfred Tarski’s work on the correspondence theory. Tarski and Rand were contemporaries, after all, and other contemporaries such as Karl Popper reference Tarski by name. Or maybe she thought of Aristotle’s contributions to the correspondence theory. It isn’t clear, but not a big deal either way.

I once stumbled upon an article claiming Rand plagiarized Hitler, of all people. As I recall, the article was posted on a literal Nazi website, so I won’t link to it, but if you really want to, you should be able to find it using your favorite search engine.

In any case, Raimondo’s Chronicles article could have been a genuine contribution to an academic question about Rand’s intellectual integrity. Instead, Raimondo destroyed the integrity of his own article by resorting to smears. His article serves as a reminder that, if you’re going to criticize someone, do it honestly and remain above board.

A note on close reading. It’s what I used above to lay bare Raimondo’s smears, particularly when he describes Objectivism as an “organized Randian movement”. Close reading can be an invaluable skill in identifying and defending against smears of this kind. But it requires good judgment and can itself be defamatory if you’re not careful. For example, some people have done close readings of things I’ve written and imputed meanings I absolutely did not intend.