This question arose in a yahoo group I was in and I did not answer it fully there (I should have but I was doing something else). I've forgotten the exact wording but will paraphrase

What was Rand's view of the environment and didn't her writings demonstrate that she was wearing ideological blinder

My answer to the specific question was that she thought it ought be treated as a property matter and any claims be subject to the standards of objective proof

That sufficed for the specific question but there were two larger issues. In the article in question "The Anti-Industrial Revolution" (1971) Miss Rand was discussing the Environemntalist Movement, not pollution as such so the rip about idiological blinders was invalid, or specifically immaterial. That is you could not establsh its truth or falsehood from the article.

Second, there is an issue of pollution here of the highest order: Cultural pollution and why I was disappointed when the Environmentalists were not exterminated back in 1982 as a threat to the human species: From the coming ice age (1971) to Global Warminism (today) Environemtalism has proven to be the Big Lie of the late thwentieth and early twenty-first centuries. The lie has succeeded so well, that is, became such an integral part of our culture, that the person assumed that pollution was a proper part of her main discussion and that if you did not make it such, you had "idealogical blinders". Now, notice, I did not commment on the questioner's honesty, His state of affairs could have been any or an admixture of the following; dishonesty and trying to smuggle in a falsehood (by ignoring that in my answer, if that was the case, it was glossed over and fell out of the discussion), insanity or honest ingnorance. If the latter, then that shows how the Environmentalists have polluted the culture (not that they are the only ones, only that they are one of the more dangerous ones since their crapola has and can be enacted into law, destoying our already fragile industrial system). I had no way to assess the questioner's honesty and I am not one who looks for the lie rught off the bat. For one thing, that leads to a kind of intellectual paranoia that is self-destructive: You may beat me in an intellectual set-to, but I'm not gonna beat myself. For another, what kind of person thinks of the lie without evidence or reason to be suspicious (and thinks themselves clever, wise or hip to what's going on to do so)? It is because I am not the biggest liar on the planet (I do not do so without provocation) that I am the best liar on the planet.

While I will not get into the nuts and bolts of the Big Lie, that has been done elsewhere, I will refer you to the 25 years of work by Petr Beckmann, the dozen years of work by Pat Thomas and AccuWeather's Joe Bastardi: You have Google, use it. As to the nature of the Environmentalists, I will refer you to Putting People First by Richard Neuhouse of the Church and Laity concerned (an anti-war group of the '60's so this is no right-wing tract of some kind) (1971).

What I am demostrating here is how context sets the terms of discussion and question. Why is this important? Well, this is the Intellectual Ordinace Depot, Right? To use ordinance correctly, you need to pick the right bomb, shell, missile or ray cannon for the job. You don't use a 10 magaton bomb against an armored column, you use a neutron bomb or, at best, a 2 kiloton "theatre nuke" or a 50.000 lb "bunker buster" if there are hardened sites. Well, understanding the context of a question or statement is the "ballpark" that you use as the target area. In police work this is the area that you "cordon off". Once you explicitly identify the context of the discussion then you can stop it from spreading to other areas as your opponent tries to weasel out of the main issue.

The value of context is not restricted to the lyceum. It is a real winner in the other areas of your life as well. For those of you who haven't kept score, I'm trained as a shrink (well not really; a "shrink" is a therapist. there are tons of other branches of psychology) and we look at how persons interact with the world. One of, in fact the only good trait of the '60's was "de-uptight-ness". This led to us being ready for a version of the japanese practice of "cosplay". This is where you dress and act in a manner apprpriate to the subject matter.

In August 1999 I went to my first full-participation sci-fi convention, MonsterRally 99. I hadn't planned on it but Ed Kemmer (space Patrol's Buzz Corry) was going to be there and "Space Ranger" Mike Elmo kind of dragooned me into it (by "dragooned" I mean made it feasible:). Well we met at Mike's house and since I was really a newbie at this (the only con I ever went to until then was a Star Trek con in Boston in '76 and that was only as a dayhop), I made sure I was briefed on what to and not to do at a full 3-day stay. One of the things he gave me was a gun and belt from the game "Lazer Tag" along with a Space Ragner jacket to go with my Space Ranger cap. So I went in as a Rocky Jones guy since no real Space Patrol gear had yet been defined, let alone implemented. I took the gun and belt and looked at him like he just landed expecting me to strap this thing on (Pal, I'm 53 years old, not 10 I thought, but I'll try anything once). So the next day, off we went. We first went to our motel, got ready, I always carry a "space bag" (shoulder bag where I keep things so I can have my hands free), into which I chucked my spaceman's goodies and off we went to the con site.

Well I yielded to temptation and strapped on the toy gun, expecting to feel like a full-fledged jackass. Didn't happen. It felt perfectly normal (I hadn't carried a raygun in 42 years). Soon I ws in the thick of it, When I went to Williamsbug Film Festival in 2006, it was all good and my "Space Patrol" gear drew the kinds of ooo's and aahh's reseveed for the full-tilt western outfits worn by the hard-core cowboys

What puts the "play' in cos(tume)Play is that the action is free form, not a 'game" or "scripted". There are other forms. The Medieval/Rennassance players call the accoutrements "garb".

what makes it work is that you know what to do almost by instinct. It is second nature. This is the role of context. I didn not have to explain what the Terra V was or the XV-30 Crimson Star (It was S.R Mike's Space Ranger ship) When I told the other spacemen at Williamsburg '02 that I was "on loan from the Space Patrol to the Crimson Star", which never existed on Rocky Jones: space Rager", they understood without explantion. Now we were all at home with rocketships, rayguns, and interplanetary travel and the terms since we were 7. I would be almost equally at home in a Star Trek/the Original Series (as a Vulcan, of course) convention except that the logic/emotion dichotomy that was part of the Star Trek world did not exist in the world of the '50's spacemen and is a bit alien to me now.

This is the value of context. Context is defined as the framework of what has gone before that relates to what is happening now. It integrates actions over time based on preveious actions and situations and is the natural outgrowth of having a memory. Its advantage is that a person need not go through the whole process of redoing the foundation that is the base for the current things he is doing. That is known, understood and accepted presumptively by all concerned. the material in the context is taken ad the order of the world, even if you disaree with some or all of it, it is still taken as the way things are. Today does not exist in a psychological vacuum.

The context for this entire domain is the Aristotelian Romantic sense of the world that I grew up (or didn't entirely grow up, as the case may be) with. I find that it is embodied in Space Patrol, expressed in "acid"/Progressive Rock and to a certain extent, Bubblegum (although, lyrically, it was a bit too self-conscious for my tastes), supporeted by the Randite philosophical system and typefied by what appears in "From the Cockpit". So, if this is the only place you come to, then you are shortchanging yourself. This is almost the least important, since the others show the active mode of the ideas presented here; just as, if you do not use the links I put in this domain, you are cheating yoursel of the full experience: Some relate directly and some are for comic effect and yes I said "all.

This does not mean to say or even imply that context need be held in conscious awareness. That varies. In a discussion of ideas, both fictional and non-fictional, yes it must be held in full awareness. In the matter of things like CosPlay, not only need it not be so held, it should not. To do so makes one self-conscious in a way that wrecks the experience since one is "trying". When I walked into the convention area at Williamsburg. I was there, in a temporal metting place of persons form the late 1800's to the late 2900's. The realism of the six-guns that the cowboys carried or raygun that Cadet Jim whipped out was provided by the context that we all understood going in. This understanding was subconsious and known to all, Meeting the Warner Bros. stuntman who worked on Cheyenne, Sugarfoot and Bronco Lane was almost as much a pleaser as meeting Ed Kemmer. When Mr. Kemmer signed his last email to me (before he passed away) with "Your CO [Commanding Officer]", that was as real to me as this keyboard and I took great pride in having "made the team [Space Patrol]" and now that I'm the ostensible Commander (by having put up the website), I must act the part and Buzz Corry's boots are a pretty big pair of shoes to f ill (I was always a better footsoldier than Officer). I could not have enjoyed all of this nearly as much as I did if I held the context in full awareness. it is way too complex to be quickly used in the way we do and requires the kind of self-consciousness that spoils the moment psychologically.

Thus we go from a specific question to CosPlay and sci-fi conventions. In this trek, you can see just how valuable context is, not only as the Intellectual Ordinance in a high-level debate, but as parto of everyday life. Is it any wonder that Ayn Rand described one of the worst "sins" of the "other side" is "context-dropping"?