SCIABARRA RESPONDS TO THE CRITICS
RESPONSE TO NICHOLAS DYKES IN FREE LIFE
This is a brief response to Nicholas Dykes's review of my book in Free Life.
On the issue of historiography and dialectic, I suggest the reader look at my responses to other critics of RUSSIAN RADICAL.
One curious point, however, needs to be answered. Dykes suggests that my mentor, the Marxist Bertell Ollman, sent me off on a "wild Marx chase" in my efforts to link Rand to the dialectic tradition. Ollman, it should be said, was among the few scholars to encourage me in my early work on Rand. But those Marxists who have reviewed the book have given no indication of amusement -- they do not believe that my approach has been defused or diverted. Ultimately, critics on the left have found my work important to our understanding of the nature of political radicalism, even if they disagree strongly with my attempts to link dialectic to those on the libertarian right. My reclamation of dialectic in the name of liberty is, then, a profound challenge to those on the left -- and also, to those on the right.
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