The Vindication of Ayn Rand

The Autonomist ^ | 03/11/05 | Cass Hewitt

[Hank Kerchief]

The Vindication of Ayn Rand

A review of James S. Valliant’s The Passion of Ayn Rand’s Critics: The Case Against the Brandens

by Cass Hewitt

Who would have thought that within the seemingly sedate and cerebral world of philosophy would be found a history to rival any Hollywood drama for intrigue, passion, seduction, lies, betrayal, black evil, and the ultimate triumph of the good—and which is also a fascinating detective story.

Among those who rose to heights of fame in the last half of the twentieth century none was as charismatic as the author-philosopher Ayn Rand. Her electrifying, radical novels depicting her fully integrated philosophy, which she named Objectivism, broke on popular consciousness like a storm and caught the enthusiasm of a generation seeking truth and values in the aridity of postmodernism. She was a sought after speaker, her public lectures filled to standing room only. She was interviewed on Prime Time television and for high circulation magazines.

She taught a philosophy of individualism in the face of rising collectivism; an ethic of adherence to reality and honesty; of objective truth against the subjectivist antirealism of the Counter Enlightenment philosophies and presented the world with a blue-print for day to day living.

On the coat tails of her fame were two young students who sought her out, convinced her their passion for her ideas was genuine and became associated with her professionally, intellectually, and ultimately personally. They were Nathaniel Branden, now a noted “self-esteem” psychology guru, and his then wife, Barbara Branden.

Not only did Branden, 25 years Rand’s junior, become her favored student, he was so professionally close to her that he gave Objectivist lectures with her, edited and wrote for the “Objectivist Newsletter”, and formed a teaching venue, the Nathaniel Branden Institute, to teach details of her philosophy to the army of readers of her novels hungry for more. Rand dedicated her magnum opus, Atlas Shrugged to him (along with her husband), and named Branden her intellectual heir.

Then suddenly, in 1968, Rand issued a statement which repudiated both the Brandens, totally divorcing them from herself and her philosophy. In “To whom it may Concern,” [The Objectivist, May 1968] Rand gave her explanation for the break detailing Brandens departure from practice of the philosophy.

However, in 1989, 7 years after Rand’s death, Nathaniel Branden published his book Judgment Day, a supposedly detailed biography of his famous philosopher-mentor. In it he painted a picture of a woman very different from that recognized by her army of admirers —a dark, “repressed“, angry woman who tortured and pilloried anyone who remotely disagreed with her, with no patience for any views not exactly her own, with an almost pathological arrogance and dictatorial tyranny.

Barbara Branden published her own “warts and all” version of her reminiscences earlier, in 1986. The Passion of Ayn Rand (later made into a movie) presented a similar picture of Rand. Both categorically stated that the reason for the break between Rand and the Brandens was because Nathaniel and Rand had been involved in an extra-marital sexual relationship while still married for a period of 14 years and that Nathaniel’s refusal to continue the affair had reduced a tyrannical Rand to hysterics.

Rand is presented as a seriously psychologically disturbed individual whose very philosophy was not only flawed but dangerous. Both books and their authors have become accepted as the last and most reliable “word” on Ayn Rand, and most works describing Rand today mainly trace back to these two as sources.

However, in 2002 a prosecuting lawyer, James Valliant, published on the Internet the results of his examination of these two books. Studied with the critical eye of a dispassionate investigative mind he saw serious errors: major contradictions both within each book and between both. Apparent to him was that a major act of deliberate deception had been perpetrated by these two well known, highly respected adherents of Rand’s philosophy.

For a considerable time before the final split the Brandens had drifted away from Rand’s philosophy but it was much worse. They lied to her about themselves, the state of their marriage, their multiple sexual affairs, and Nathaniel Branden’s secret four year love affair with another woman while he was supposedly carrying on a sexual liaison with Rand herself . Worst of all, was the reason for the deception. The lies enabled them to use her name to promote their own early publications and the considerable income they were deriving from the “spin-offs“. Nathaniel Branden admits that he frequently “paced the floor” trying to work out how not to wreck the “life he had built up for himself” as Objectivism’s authorized representative. At his wife’s urging that he admit his secret affair to Rand he responded “not until after she writes the forward for my book."

As the author states, “the persistent dishonesty of the Brandens about their own part in Rand’s life makes it impossible to rely on them as historians of events for which they are the only witnesses.” He amply demonstrates, taking their own words from their critiques of Rand, to substantiate his conclusion that “they will recollect, suppress, revise, exaggerate and omit whenever convenient… [where] necessary they will pull out of their magical hats a very “private” conversation that one of them “once” had with Rand to prove what all the rest of the evidence denies.”

Their criticisms of Rand are personal and “psychological,” perfect examples of the psychologizing Rand denounced, attempting to demonstrate that Rand did not live up to her own philosophy. Barbara Branden makes total about face contradictions within a few pages; draws conclusions from nearly non-existent evidence such as a single old family photo and uses such alien to Objectivism concepts as “feminine instincts” and “subjective preferences” without the bother of defining these terms.

In her The Passion of Ayn Rand, Ms. Branden draws personal psychological conclusions without any evidence. Examples such as “Her Fathers’ seeming indifference ..{had} ..to be a source of anguish.. as an adult, she always spoke as if [they] were simple facts of reality, of no emotional significance.. one can only conclude that a process of self-protective emotional repression [was deep rooted]…” and further “In all my conversations with Ayn Rand about her years in Russia she never once mentioned to me [any] encounter ..with anti-Semitism. It is all but impossible that there were not such encounters.. One can only assume that ... the pain was blocked from her memory … perhaps because the memory would have carried with it an unacceptable feeling of humiliation” Assumptions, which Valliant says, prove nothing.

It is interesting to note that Ms. Branden was an ardent supporter of Rand until immediately after the break, when such wild accusations and psychologizing rationalizations cut from whole cloth began. Indeed, Ms. Branden can be read at public Internet forums doing the very same thing to this day.

Nathaniel Branden is even more revealing. His own words not only carry the same blatant unreal contradictions as Ms. Brandens’ but he also reveals a twisted mentality capable of totally unethical acts which he then tries to portray as his victim’s faults. For example, he accuses Rand of being authoritarian and “causing us to repress our true selves” and offers as evidence his own lying sycophancy, agreeing with Rand on issues he was later to claim he had always disagreed; praising Rand's insight in topics such as psychology in which field, he says, she had little experience. Considering that it was Rand's endorsement of him he was seeking, his behavior constitutes, as Valliant says, “spiritual embezzlement.”

The complete lack of value in anything either of the Branden’s have to say about Ayn Rand is summed up with pithy succinctness by the author: “We have seen [they] will distort and exaggerate the evidence, and that they have repeatedly suppressed vital evidence and [employ] creativity in recollecting it. Both exhibit internal confusions and numerous self contradictions. The only consistencies are the passionate biases that emanate from their personal experiences. These factors all combine to render their biographical efforts useless to the serious historian.”

James Valliant has done more than demonstrate the complete invalidity—including a viscous character assassination—of both the Brandens books. Using the clear logic and language of an experienced prosecuting lawyer, with only essential editing, he has presented and interpreted Rand’s own private notes, made while she was acting as psychological counselor for Nathaniel Branden. These show her mind in action as she analyses the language of, and finally understands the bitter truth about, the man she had once loved.

Mr. Valliant not only demonstrates this is a tragic story of assault on innocence by a viciously duplicitous person, it is also an amazing detective story, and the detective is none other than Ayn Rand herself.

Over the four years of emotionally painful psychological counseling Rand gave Branden for his supposed sexual dysfunction, we see a brilliant mind carefully dissecting the truths she unearthed. By applying her own philosophy to Branden’s methods of thinking although still unaware of the worst of his deceptions, we see Rand slowly reaching her horrifying conclusion.

The picture of Rand which shines out through her notes is of a woman of amazing depths of compassion; who would not judge or condemn if she could not understand why a person thought and felt as they did; who would give all her time and energy to try to understand and help someone she believed was suffering and in need of guidance.

The facts indicate the sexual affair was apparently over 4 years before the final public split, though Mr. Valiant is careful to say he is only certain it had ended by the start of 1968 and that it was Rand, not Branden, who ended the relationship because she had finally understood his subjectivism, deceits (including financial misappropriation) and mental distortions.

From the flaws in their own works and from Rand's concurrent notes of the time it is clearly apparent that in her 1968 statement of repudiation, Rand told the truth about events and the Brandens lied. Throughout all of her years with them, Rand behaved with the integrity followers of her work would have expected. And, to quote Mr. Valliant, “The Brandens were dishonest with Rand about nearly everything a person can be … largely to maintain the good thing they had going at NBI. This dishonesty lasted for years. ..[They] not only lied to Rand, they lied to their readers .. [and] then they lied about their lies. Ever since they have continued to lie in memoirs and biographies about their lies, calling Rand's 1968 statement ‘libelous’. This remarkable all-encompassing dishonesty is manifest from these biographies and all the more apparent now we have Rand's journal entries from the same period.”

Her generous nature was unable to conceive the full truth about Nathaniel Branden. It is left to Valliant to finish the story, taking it to its full and final dreadful conclusion, showing exactly what it was Nathaniel Branden had deliberately done to this innocent, brilliant, compassionate woman, and what both the Brandens, whom Rand rejected as having any association at all with her philosophy, are still doing to this day—and why.

In the end, those who have used the Branden’s lies to claim the philosophy of Objectivism “doesn’t work, because it’s author couldn’t follow the precepts,” are shown to be completely wrong. Rand used her philosophy and psycho-epistemology to discover the truth; her philosophy to guide her actions in dealing with it and finally to lift her above the heartbreak and pain it caused her.

There is something almost operatic in the telling: A great woman, a great mind, who conceived of a philosophy of love for and exalted worship of the best in the human mind, who defended with searing anger the right of all people to be free to discover happiness, being deceived by the one person she believed to be her equal, her lover and heir, who had lied to and manipulated her for his own gains while she was alive and vilified her name and distorted with calumny the image of her personality after her death.

Perhaps in nothing else is her greatness better shown, than that she was able to rise above the cataclysm and live and laugh again. She always said, “Evil is a negative.. It can do nothing unless we let it.” In her life she lived that and proved it true.

[FreeKeys]

You misunderstood altruism.

As a 12-year old I misunderstood YOUR altruism; but it WAS the pure altruism of Immanuel Kant, Auguste Comte AND MY PARENTS -- and the parents of many other youths who actually did commit suicide, possibly including that 14-year-old prodigy last week. For Comte, altruism is not simple benevolence or charity, but rather the moral and political obligation of the individual to sacrifice his own interests for the sake of a greater social good.

Part of my thinking at the time was, well, if I helped anyone, then I WOULD GET A BENEFIT FROM A BETTER WORLD, and even if it were incrementally better world I WOULD STILL GET A BENEFIT AND THEREFORE IT WOULD HAVE BEEN EVIL -- unless I killed myself immediately upon doing the good deed, so I wouldn't benefit. OR else -- get this -- I could help a criminal, NOT TO REFORM -- BUT TO BE A CRIMINAL. Then I'd be "helping" someone and NOT GETTING A BENEFIT -- but that was obviously ludicrous.

These were pretty heavy thoughts for a thoughtful kid who wanted to be good, but couldn't figure out how with the corrupted teachings I was given. Have you ever had to work through inner turmoil and conflict because of corrupted teachings yourself? It can be crushing for a sickly kid with poor guidance, if any. Castigating a 12-year-old kid for "misunderstanding" something still shows a stark lack of compassion on your part, IMO.

[annalex]

Now you are not a 12 year old, so my lack of compassion to your confusion a long time ago does not translate to a lack of compassion to you, -- and beside, my shortcomings are not exactly the point, are they?

If Rand was opposed to the idea that one is under the moral and political obligation of the individual to kill himself, then she was right, of course, in her opposition. But she built nothing positive out of that.

I'd be willing to continue this, but not tonight. Feel free to explore more, it is a good topic, and I did not mean to come across brusque.

[FreeKeys]

Fair enough. Me either. 'Night!

[BradyLS]

It wouldn't be charity -- or altruism, -- if by giving of myself I gave something bad. What is given in charity is by definition good, so the giver, who gives of himself, must be good.

Why are you using these terms interchangeably? They don't have interchangeable meanings. They don't even refer to one another.

ALTRUISM
1. Unselfish concern for the welfare of others; selflessness.
2. Zoology. Instinctive cooperative behavior that is detrimental to the individual but contributes to the survival of the species.

CHARITY
1. Provision of help or relief to the poor; almsgiving.
2. Something given to help the needy; alms.
3. An institution, organization, or fund established to help the needy.
4. Benevolence or generosity toward others or toward humanity.
5. Indulgence or forbearance in judging others. See Synonyms at mercy.
6. often Charity Christianity. The theological virtue defined as love directed first toward God but also toward oneself and one's neighbors as objects of God's love.

--According to Dictionary.com

Altruism is not selective. It is indescriminate. It does not consider the need or plenty of the recipients. It is concern for others potentially to the cost of one's self.

Charity is an act which discriminates to the benefit of the needy. It is also a conscious attitude of benevolence to others. It presumes continuity of the self to maintain it. Even Christian charity, which seems quite altruistic, requires the giver to think of one's self as well.

A gift that is given without discrimination or thought is not charity. Nor is the choice to die so that others may live. Neither set of definitions bestow inherent "goodness" on the act or the giver. I would say goodness about the act or the giver depends upon the context surrounding the event.

[WhiteGuy]

"... have found her philosophy vastly more compelling, life-saving, inspiring and ennobling than anything else..."

Well said.

[CSM]

"I don't know where Rand discusses abortion, but she was pro-abortion. I don't know why."

An assertion on your part, yet you can not point me in the direction to where to find proof of your assertion. Until you can show me specific examples or documentation of your assertion, I'm not willing to blindly believe your assertion.

"The Libertarian Party platform says that they are against the government paying for abortions and they are against the government prohibiting them. Don't ask me to explain this either."

Do they believe this at the Federal level and leave the legality of it to the States?

[CSM]

"hack writer's awkward attempt to paint Simon Legree mustaches..." THEN "or mount an ad hominem attack on the critic,.."

Anything seem hypocritical in your post?

What has the asbestos lawsuit industry done and how is that comparable to the train wreck story.....Well, for starters, billions in cash is being wrung from the economy to "purge" buildings of asbestos, lawsuits have successfully put hundreds/thousands of productive companies out of business, litigators have gotten very wealthy and true victims have hardly seen anything.

On top of that, how much longer would the Trade Center have stayed intact if it still had the structural protection of asbestos?

Could it be that parasites and lazy people cause catastrophes or at minimum exacerbate the situation?

[CSM]

"What is given in charity is by definition good, so the giver, who gives of himself, must be good."

Would you consider the United Way contributions "good" even though they were used in fraudulant manners? How about charitable contributions given to the International Red Cross? The oil for food program?

Need I continue with charity that is not by definition good?

[Zionist Conspirator]

Askel5 wrote:
Please, you're speaking to a Catholic. Not some lobotomized Bibliolator or Enlightened.

I have told you both (BE and CfromECUSA) that Catholicism, at least in the United States, is an over-intellectualized, urban, immigrant religion whose opinion for the most part of American Heartland culture is no different from that of our "Blue State" elites. I have never understood why Catholics were so prominent in a movement that supposedly celebrates the American Heartland when they have such a low opinion of its people.

I call your attention to Askel5's witty little mot about "lobotomized Bibliolator[s]." Now first of all, Catholics always react with the greatest offense when accused of "Mariolatry" or worhsip of statues. Yet many of them seem not to notice the irony in turning right around and branding their Fundamentalist Protestants with an "olotry." I ask you both in all seriousness: is the charge of "Bibliolatry" one whit more applicable than the common anti-Catholic charges? Yet Catholics who bristle at Fundamentalist insults feel absolutely no compunction about turning right around and doing the same thing.

I would point out another important thing: it is well known that American Heartlanders bristle at the hypocrisy of being labelled "stupid," "lazy," "white trash," etc., by people who make a career of defending Blacks and Hispanics from identical charges. May I ask why Catholics do not understand that similar charges of stupidity are equally hypocritical coming from members of a Church the majority of whose members throughout history have been illiterate peasants? Is it not at bottom a simple assertion of genetic cultural supremacy, ie, "our illiterate peasants are all honorary intellecutals but yours are objects of ridicule?" Just why should I resent this attitude one iota less than the same attitude when evinced by Blacks (for example)?

Every culture in the world is full of simple people. May I suggest that insulting those belonging to another culture while ignoring one's own is a form of ethnic bigotry?

And by the way, I notice that "lobotomized Bibliolators" don't have a plague of lisping, mincing, evolutionist, higher critical clergy and theologians cowering from liberalism while leading crusades against war and the death penalty. Considering the vast gulf in quality of leadership, I don't think any Catholic has any reason to snipe at "Bibliolators." Perhaps the Catholic Church would be better off if its clergy were less intellectual.

[Rembrandt_fan]

Er, no hypocrisy I can detect, young Randian, and a little confused by your use of the word in this context. That aside, I was critiquing her shallow, overbearing attempt to make otherwise sympathetic victims of a train disaster into highly unsympathetic parasites who, according to your Guiding Light, deserved what was coming to them. Any novelist or painter attempting to pound home a political point is a propagandist, not an artist. Unless presented as an allegory, such as Orwell's 'Animal Farm', or possessing incredible literary or artistic gifts, such as Orwell (again) or Kathe Kollwitz, the work of a propagandist is usually didactic, superficial, and false. Rand was neither capable of successful allegory nor possessed of extraordinary literary gifts. Her philosophy, such as it is, is a flagrant, pale imitation of Nietszche--who at least had the intellectual humility to recognize that some of his ideas--like eternal recurrence of the same--were probably wrong. 'Humility' and 'Ayn Rand' are mutually exclusive terms.

I'm not an architect or engineer, so I can't address the whole asbestos, World Trade Center deal. And while it's true that some people contribute to their own destruction in some way, large or small, it is equally true that bad choices are not confined to 'parasites or lazy people'. (Use of the dehumanizing term 'parasites' says worlds about your leader's philosophy, by the way. It allows self-styled elites to rationalize, say, foisting off nonsense disguised as Deep Truth on an unsuspecting public.)

[Convert from ECUSA]

"Lobotomized Bibliolator" is equivalent to calling Catholics "Mariolatrists". I was called similar things when I was Evagelical by non-Christians. With all the recent scandals of much of Catholic leadership in recent years, to say nothing of the continued lack of disciplining (and excommunication if needed) for "intellectuals" like the infamous Fr. Greeley and Cardinal Mahoney, etc., who have shown that they long ago kicked the Lord and the Church out of their hearts, maybe we Catholics have enough to clean up in our own house without sneering at other Christians who may not be like us.

[CSM]

You really should re-read your posts with a condradiction meter prior to posting.

Babble on.....

[Rembrandt_fan]

Right back at you, sport. Always nice to have it out with empty-headed, glassy-eyed cult members, although it doesn't present much of an intellectual challenge.

[Rembrandt_fan]

A 'condradiction meter'? (chuckle)

[CSM]

"Always nice to have it out with empty-headed, glassy-eyed cult members..."

What was that you said about ad hom. attacks?

[CSM]

One more thing, do you feel compassion for the people of Sodom and Gomorra? (spelling police feel free to correct my spelling.)

[annalex]

I will be on the road this week anbd will respond to all of you when I come back.

[Rembrandt_fan]

An ad hominem fallacy is one wherein the character of a person is impugned to discredit his argument, rather than debating the points of his argument directly. Ad hominem translates as 'at (or to) the man'. Thus, calling you and your like-minded friends cult members is not an ad hominem attack. I do so directly--and correctly--using a method my attorney father called the duck test: 'If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it is a duck.' Empty heads and glassy, vacant stares are common attributes of cult members, thus that particular allusion.

Of course I feel compassion for the dead in those two now-defunct cities. 'Love the sinner, hate the sin' is a central tenet of my faith. Surprised, though, that an objectivist would use a Biblical reference. I would think someone ascribing to Ayn Rand's belief system would draw from a different well.

[CSM]

Let's see, you call me a cult member with an empty head and a glassy stare, then you admit to blindly following certain tenents of your faith. Finally, you admit to being surprised with my thinking outside of the supposed cult I am following.

Makes me wonder who is the cult member, by your description, with an empty head and glassy eyes.

I never said I agreed with Ayn Rand 100% of the time, in fact I said that I haven't read very much of her work. What I have read has made some very good philosophical arguments for the free market and capitalism. I always hear people try to degrade her philosophy with certain claims, yet I have yet to actually have these claims of her positions documented. If they exist, then I am more than willing to take a look at it and make the decision after reading it.

[jackbob]

You contradict yourself. Quoting me first, you then replied "same here" to my statement that "Rand has had a tremendous influence on me and my opinions." You then say you "stand by" your "epithet of 'pitiful.'" Which was expressed in the context of "let us not pretend that her... philosophy ever convinced anyone outside of a very narrow circle of fellow-theorizers." If that be the case, then explain how she had a "tremendous influence on" you and your "opinions."