Leonard Peikoff discusses censorship

by David P. Hayes

Leonard Peikoff is known as the author of three books on philosophy written for non-academic readers, as a lecturer who spoke multiple times at the prestigious Ford Hall Forum, and as heir of Ayn Rand and thereby the author of introductions and afterwords to her writings.  However, many people of every type living in the Los Angeles area first encountered him as the host of a daily talk show on a Los Angeles radio station in 1996.  The excerpts on this page are from that program that year.  (Peikoff had begun as a host with a once-a-week show the last two months of 1995.  From 1997 to 1999, Peikoff continued to broadcast, much of that time once a week, ending with another daily show, expanding the number of cities that had an affiliate broadcasting the show.  Though no excerpts from those other years are included on this page, it is possible that additional pages will be added to this site, and linked to this page, at a future date.)

The Leonard Peikoff Show was devoted to philosophic ideas, explained in a manner that could be understood by lay audiences, with passions arising when the host, callers and guests were expressing the foundations of the type of culture that they wanted to live in.  The owners and management of station KIEV (which had long been transmitting on AM 870) need not have worried that the long-time college professor who would now sit behind the station’s microphone would utter profane, lewd, slanderous or otherwise illicit content.  Of course, it was customary in the radio industry for station owners to retain the right to set standards as to what words were and were not appropriate for the audience that the station had long cultivated.  Like many if not most stations at the time, KIEV exercised the right to forbid some expression that would have been allowed the U.S. Government’s Federal Communications Commission (FCC), though of course all with a role in controlling the broadcast content had to concern themselves with the possibility that the station could be fined or reprimanded for violation of FCC rules.

The Leonard Peikoff Show of January 11, 1996, had a topic which many times has been discussed without crude language, but a caller didn’t abide by those precedents. Listeners heard fewer words from that caller than did Dr. Peikoff.  Here is the excerpt:

 
On the program of January 15, Dr. Peikoff himself spoke without being aware of what was within acceptable limits for the station:

In a subsequent episode, he will refer to this moment, and stated then that KIEV had acted in a manner which it was appropriate for them to exercise.

As someone new to hosting a radio program, Dr. Peikoff often asked for advice from his producer, Linda, who drew upon her fifteen years of experience.  In the following excerpt from the February 9, 1996, show, he asked about whether a particular word was allowed.

 
On the episode of March 6, the topic of the day was free speech.  Dr. Peikoff made a point that mere acts by private parties of not participating in the attempt by other private parties to disseminate a particular statement, does not constitute a violation of free speech and cannot be regarded as censorship.  He explained the difference, illustrating it by reference with his own experience when KIEV acted appropriately in dropping words from what Dr. Peikoff had said.  (This almost certainly referred to the moment from the January 15 program excerpted above.)

I find it easy to guess the “conjunction” of words in the January 15 broadcast which were bleeped forty-six seconds into the excerpt.  Enough sound on either side of the bleep remained to piece together some consonants, and to fill in the rest based on colloquial usage and the station’s deference to religious people’s sensibilities.

On the March 7 program, Dr. Peikoff wanted to illustrate the deterioration of standards in colleges by reading the same beginning of a poem which he quoted in his lecture “Assault from the Ivory Tower: The Professors’ War Against America,” which he delivered at the Ford Hall Forum in 1983 and published in the Ayn Rand anthology The Voice of Reason.  (See page 200 of the hardback and trade paperback editions of that book for the quote and context.)  That was not possible.  Listeners to this program when it was broadcast on KIEV would recognize the name George Putnam as the most prominent person to host a program on KIEV, he previously having been a long-time news anchor on Los Angeles television stations.  The fact that Putnam’s program preceded Peikoff’s on the daily schedule, and that Putnam and Peikoff often exchanged a minute of conversation at the end of Putnam’s program, undoubtedly helped Peikoff build his local radio audience.

 
It was Leonard Peikoff’s practice to end his program with his greeting to “Lady K.” and an admonition to his audience to “check your premises.”  He never divulged the identity of “Lady K.,” but listeners who knew that he had a minor daughter named Kira might have surmised on that basis.  On the April 12 program, a caller began in innocent tone inquiring about these two oft-stated remarks, but ventured into another topic.  The excerpt:

 
Later in that same April 12 broadcast, another caller reports on his inquiry into what the earlier caller had claimed.  Those not familiar with Southern California are unlikely to understand the reference to a specific city: Camarillo was where the state of California operated a mental hospital (subsequently closed) in the KIEV listening area.

 
In the final minutes of the April 12 program, yet another caller followed up on the caller who had asked about “check your premises.”

 
Having been deceived by one caller who had lulled the program and station staff into broadcasting prohibited content, Dr. Peikoff expresses joy in impeding the next such effort.  Here he is on April 16, 1996.

 

Supplemental Tracks

The long excerpt here from March 13, 1996, does not offer any new insight on Dr. Peikoff’s views on free speech or censorship, nor on impropriety which does not deserve to be answered (as was raised at the end of the first April 12 excerpt).  The caller does most of the speaking.  As Dr. Peikoff will state, it was KIEV which chose to bleep the caller and remove him from the airwaves.  Dr. Peikoff preferred to continue on with him, to gain insight into what Dr. Peikoff here calls “racial subjectivism.”  This was a rare topic in Objectivist discussion until then and remained so afterward, so his admirers may want to take this opportunity to hear his comments.

 
On the January 25, 1996, program, Dr. Peikoff told a caller that the combative approach taken by some callers was helpful for the host to build and maintain an audience.

 

Those new to Ayn Rand’s philosophy, Objectivism, who want to know about her views on censorship and free speech, may want to read her essays “Man’s Right” (in the books The Virtue of Selfishness and Capitalism: the Unknown Ideal), “Censorship: Local and Express” (in the book Philosophy: Who Needs It), and “Thought Control” (in the periodical The Ayn Rand Letter).  Check the web site of the Ayn Rand Institute for articles which can be read or listened to on the site.

 

Those who enjoy hearing Dr. Peikoff discuss what were contemporary politics at the time of his radio series, may want to visit the page on this site with an excerpt of Dr. Peikoff discussing Bob Dole, the Republican nominee for President in 1996 who lost to Bill Clinton’s re-election bid.