Stephanie,
Davey is looking right at Rand's achievements and ignoring them in favor of
name-calling. Rand had her problems alright, but that is not innocent
intellectual inquiry.
Mike Rael

stephanie_m_silberstein <stephanie_m_silberstein@...> wrote:
Hi Davey,

I think your response illustrates a problem with diagnostic labels.
The DSM-IV is useful in terms of describing a range of behaviors, but
there is too much of a tendency to categorise people based upon their
behaviors. Over-categorisation leads to over-diagnosation (if that's
even a word) and to people being expected to conform to a diagnosis
rather than being viewed as individuals.

Personally, I don't care about whether Ayn Rand was borderline,
paranoid schizophrenic, manic-depressive, or anything else. I'd rather
view her as a whole person, take what I can out of her work, and feel
sad about some poor choices she made that interfered with her
happiness and the happiness of people around her.

That being said, I don't think asking a question about Rand's
psychiatric makeup deserves the kind of anger, sarcasm, and belittling
that Mike R. expressed. I think he thought that by rewriting your
question to attack you instead of what he perceived to be an attack on
Rand, you would draw the parallel he drew and apologise for your
"offensive" question. I believe that questions are important,
even--and especially--the ones that make people uncomfortable, and I
hope you will not withdraw from this list as a result of his behavior.
I also hope that this incident will not grow into an all-out flame
war... speculations about either of your characters is unnecessary and
adds nothing.

best,
Stephanie
--- In nathaniel_branden@yahoogroups.com, "daveywavey1000"
<daveywavey1000@...> wrote:
>
>
> Two other comments:
>
> a) Of course you can have a borderline borderlne. To be a BPD under
> DSMIV required at least 5 out of 9 characteristics. Someone that has
> 4 isn't BPD, but could be said to have strong borderline traits - as
> opposed to someone that has only 1 or 2.
>
> Everyone has borderline traits. This is a matter of degree. When
> these traits dominate the personality in an inflexible and all
> pervasive manner then that person is likely to be BPD.
>
> b) You mention that AR was a DSMIV kaleidoscope. You clearly know
> quite a bit about about psychology - do you think AR had any of the
> Cluster B Personality Disorders? The reason I choose them is that she
> seemed quite an unempathetic person, and Cluster B Personality
> Disorders tend to be "bad people".
>
>
> --- In nathaniel_branden@yahoogroups.com, "Michael Lee"
> <mikelee.home@> wrote:
> >
> > Daveywavey who has a really gayvey nom de guerre asks oh-so-
> innocently if AR
> > was borderline:
> >
> > > Did Ayn Rand have a Borderiner Personality Disorder - on the
> > > alternative, strong borderline traits?
> >
> > I consider myself an expert, or at least a veteran, on this
> subject, having
> > banged a borderline for several years.
> >
> > No, St. Ayn was not borderline. That you might think so indicates
> that you
> > are happily free of personal experience with the borderline Species.
> >
> > And there's no such thing as being borderline borderline. Any more
> than
> > there is being borderline leopard.
> >
> > This is not to say that being in St. Ayn's presence wasn't a DSM4
> > kaleidoscopic experience. The colors!
> >
> > I think it's kind of funny how other people here have been offended
> by your
> > question. I think they're missing the fact that peeing on the
> carpet is
> > almost always mixed with a charming naivete.
> >
> > Welcome, grasshopper.
> >
> > Mike Lee
> > 4 what? 4 years old? How cute!
> >
>






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