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Objectively Speaking: Ayn Rand Interviewed

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This book, published some 26 years after Ayn Rand's death, was not intended to be an introduction to her philosophical thought, but it turns out to be just that.
After the publication of her inspiring novel Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand, novelist and philosopher, was invited many times to be interviewed on television, at universities, and on radio. The audio and video versions of those interviews have long been available from scattered sources. Here they are gathered togerher and edited by the excellent hands of Marlene Podritske and Peter Schwartz (former Chairman of the Ayn Rand Institute, www.aynrand.org).
The editors include 3 interviews of Ayn Rand in her early days in America, while in the movie industry, which have not been available before. The "On Campus" interviews are organized by subject, covering Rand's Objectivist philosophy vx. Conservatism, the topid of "extremism", anti-capitalist myths, Rand's view on the American Constitution and the political structure of a free society. She speaks on a quiet subject that is coming to make all the difference in this country, objective law. She speaks on what should be America's free press, education, her views on Romantic literature vs. Naturalism, the visual arts, her favorite play and paintings (some surprises here!). She advances a theory of humor, then gets into the heavier areas of ethics, its foundations, its sabotage by altruism, individual rights as the bridge to politics. The last section of the book, offering interviews from 1959 up to 1981, just a few months before her death, includes interviews with Mike Wallace, Professonr James McConell at University of Michigan, two on the Johnny Carson show, in which he shows himself to be a gentleman and much more than a comedian, Edwin Newman of Speaking Freely, James Day, Raymond Newman and Louis Rukeyser, the financial advisor. The book finishes with an interview of Ayn Rand's intellectual heir, Leonard Peikoff, not only a teacher of philosophy but a philosopher himself (see his work on the foundation of induction) by his wife, Amy Peikoff.
Not included are Rand's famous Playboy interview and a few others published elsewhere. One does not get anything in this book on Rand's metaphysics or epistemology, but those are technical issues that would not come up in such a venue.
We can be thankful for this look into Rand's self-confident speaking style, her thoughtful and alert response to unscripted questions. For an introduction to Rand's views on art, politics and her presentation of her revolutionary ethics, this book can serve as a way to get someone who has only heard of her started in an exploration of the philosophical mind of this amazing woman. For those who are quite familiar with her published writings, I have to tell you that you will find some unexpected nuggets of her thought that you don't find elsewhere. A good addition to The Ayn Rand Library.

I'm half way through this fascinating new book edited by Marlene Podritske and Peter Schwartz. It is a collection of interviews covering the time period from the 1940s through 1981. This intellectual tour de force covers a wide range of subjects. AR's laser focus and lighting quick logic are revealed in a manner that makes me marvel at her ability and appreciate her from a new vantage point. Buy it!

If you are like me and would like to know how the greatest defender of reason and rights of our time, Ayn Rand, would have responded to much of what is going on today, then you are in luck. In this collection of interviews Ayn Rand did over a span of approximately 45 years she answers questions on virtually any philosophically substantive topic you can imagine. In so doing, you find out what she would have thought about the on-going trends in esthetics, politics, ethics and epistemology that are causing such misery in the world today. But better still, as she always did in every question ever posed to her, she provides alternative solutions that will make sense to anyone interested in pursuing truth.

OBJECTIVELY SPEAKING is a non-exhaustive collection of interviews given by Ayn Rand from 1932 to 1981 (she died in 1982). Your opinion of this book will largely depend on what you think of Rand, but those interested in Rand (as friends or critics) will appreciate the fact that in these interviews Rand discusses some things that aren't mentioned in her published works and fills in a few gaps in her biography.

The book ends with an interview of Leonard Peikoff, Rand's self-proclaimed intellectual heir. Peikoff is unbelievably sycophantic and the interview helps explain how he ended up her heir when more independent followers either left her or were kicked out.

As with everything produced by the Ayn Rand Institute, one has to be cautious about relying on the transcriptions. Minor quibbles: there is no list of all of Rand's interviews and a few of the interviews are undated.