Chris Sciabarra
[Continued from page 5]
SUNNI: That sounds really interesting. But, before we get too far afield from Total Freedom ... You were nice enough to send me a review copy of it; I suppose I should confess that I was unable to finish that one -- a very rare occurrence for me. The jargon-heavy first couple of chapters gave me too many grad school flashbacks! [laughs] I've read a lot of praise for it, though, especially the second half. I enjoyed Russian Radical and Feminist Interpretations of Ayn Rand
CHRIS: By all means! [laughing] I know that the first part of TF is really rough going for some; but because my own give-and-take with the critics helped me to develop a more rigorous defense and definition of dialectical method, I knew that TF could not escape that level of technical detail. I think I do need to author a piece that I could call "Dialectics for Dummies", present company excepted. [laughing] It's just that it is a very abstruse subject matter and a word with a very complex and conflicted history. It's calling out for an elementary exposition. And I'll get that done before too long.
Some people have commented on the "academese" in some of my scholarly work -- Perigo calls it "Polish" -- but I think some just don't appreciate that if I wanted to enter into a discussion about a very difficult subject matter, I had no choice but to acquaint myself with the highly technical debates that were current in that field. I speak to my audience; the academic subjects require familiarity with some pretty esoteric topics. The good news is that I can and do speak English on most occasions, even Brooklynese if you'd like. [laughing] And because of my willingness to engage in dialogue over the years with many different audiences, each with its own interests and needs, I've gotten better and better at expressing myself more universally. You might want to check out my essay on Dialectics and the Art of Nonfiction in this regard.
SUNNI: I like your Brooklynese! It isn't too heavy ... just enough to give your voice a spot of character. But then I'm a sucker for accents ...
CHRIS: [laughs]
SUNNI: Which of your books has sold best? Which is your favorite? Which was best received?
CHRIS: Well the best seller by far has been Ayn Rand: The Russian Radical, which is now in its seventh printing. My favorite? It depends. They're like my children and it's rare for a mother or a father to say that one child is a favorite over others. I like to think of it as a context-sensitive evaluation. Russian Radical was my favorite to research; Total Freedom was my favorite in terms of its level of integration and closure; Marx, Hayek, and Utopia has the specialness of being my first born.
SUNNI: Spoken like a true parent ...
CHRIS: It's difficult to say which book was best received. Again: It depends. In the face of hefty criticism, I just keep reminding myself of Wilde's statement: "There is only one thing in life worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about." I have gotten some superlative reviews, but in the end, I guess I'm less interested in the superlatives, and far more interested in the fact that my work continues to be discussed and debated.
SUNNI: Speaking of debates, how do you think Ayn Rand would have liked being considered a feminist? In your view, was she a feminist?
CHRIS: I think she would have hated it. I don't think she was a feminist per se, but I do think that she offers many women wonderful ideas and images: she extols the virtues of independence, individual responsibility and accountability; she projects strong women of immense self-esteem in her fiction; she saw sex as a celebration of life and love. Whatever her negative views toward feminism and women's lib, Rand clearly contributes something of value to a classical liberal and individualist approach to feminism, which simply extends the great individualist values of the classical liberal movement to women and women's issues.
SUNNI: How did the Journal of Ayn Rand Studies [JARS] come about? Am I correct in suspecting that that's consuming most of your work time these days? How's it going?
CHRIS: I actually tell the story of the origins of JARS in a Free Radical essay I wrote some years ago: JARS: Four Years and Counting. Bill Bradford, Stephen Cox, and I came together with the purpose of publishing a variety of scholarly perspectives on Rand's work and legacy in a respectful exchange of ideas, with no partisan requirements. People coming from different disciplines and different schools of thought would meet in our pages to grapple with Rand's complex legacy. We're now entering our seventh year of publication, and I'm delighted with the directions that JARS has taken over the years. But, yes, it is an inordinate amount of work; I'm editing the equivalent of a 500-page anthology each year (two separate issues of 250 or so pages each), and interfacing among authors, peer readers, advisory board members, and so forth can be very time-consuming. Considering that I coordinate the peer review process, work with authors in the preparation and correction of page proofs, and submit the final 256-page PDF to the printer, it's no wonder that I fall behind in some of my work. But it is a labor of love, in many ways, and I'm pleased we're going in a healthy direction. We published two symposia last year to mark the Rand Centenary, and we have an ethics-heavy issue coming up, along with a symposium on Ayn Rand and Friedrich Nietzsche. I'll keep you posted!
SUNNI: Please do! Is there any chance that JARS will eventually be available online? It would be great if a person could get an online subscription, or pay some nominal amount to view an article ...
CHRIS: I'm hoping that all this will, indeed, come to pass. So many journals are publishing their back catalogue online, and I'm looking forward to accommodating that consumer demand over time. Two out of the last three issues we published completely sold out. So the time is certainly approaching for more accessible electronic availability.
SUNNI: It's good to hear it's so successful for you. We'll probably wander back to Rand again, but before I leave her for now, I'm wondering how you respond to articles like Butler Shaffer's The Libertarians' Albatross. Is the problem he addresses more one of her followers than one that originates with her ideas, in your view? Before you answer, sweetie, in all fairness I gotta point out that I agreed with him, at least as far as I grok Objectivism today.
CHRIS: I actually corresponded with Butler when I read that critique. I do think certain problems originate in Rand's work, or, perhaps more accurately, aspects of her work that have been severed from her larger, more important emphasis on context-keeping. Many of the problems on which Butler focuses relate to Objectivist positions that drop context. Other issues are raised by terminology that is peculiar to Objectivism. And it is, of course, not the case that Objectivism necessitates any affirmation of the neoconservative foreign policy agenda. Rand was a serious critic of US foreign policy, as I've shown in many articles -- see Understanding the Global Crisis: Reclaiming Rand's Radical Legacy, A Question of Loyalty, and a blog entry -- and this aspect of her radical legacy has been practically disowned by many of her latter-day followers.
