Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

The Vindication of Ayn Rand
The Autonomist ^ | 03/11/05 | Cass Hewitt

Posted on 03/11/2005 6:17:42 PM PST by 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.



TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Philosophy
KEYWORDS: aynrand; barbarabranden; bookreview; culminy; natanielbranden; objectivism; vindication
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20 ... 41-6061-8081-100 ... 301-319 next last
To: ARepublicanForAllReasons
Yeah, now dare they lie about their sexual affairs when Ayn and Nathanial had a compact to lie about their own extra-marital liason? That's where the lies started, and it was Ayn Rand who initiated the affair and urged they keep it secret -- as opposed to the honest route of informing their respective spouses and seeking divorces.
IIRC, it wasn't a secret to their spouses. I thought the lie was their rationalization that their affair was somehow the right thing to do. That aspect of it alone, to me, is icky to the extreme.
By the way, both Nathanial and Barbara's books have more nice things to say about Ayn Rand than negative, the latter's bio has a palpable air of admiration, even reverence for Rand, despite the hurt Barbara suffered.
You know, I remember that too about The Passion. I was impressed by Barbara's obvious admiration for Ayn after all was said & done.
61 posted on 03/11/2005 11:03:45 PM PST by jennyp (WHAT I'M READING NOW: Debugging Windows Programs by McKay & Woodring)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 60 | View Replies]

To: ARepublicanForAllReasons
Good insight.

I waded through the turgid, didactic morass that is 'Atlas Shrugged' while in high school, following it up with 'The Fountainhead' and several of her purely political essays when I was in college since I kept seeing her quoted all over the place by sometimes reputable pundits and political thinkers. It simply amazes me that a woman of such minor literary gifts is touted as such a major philosophical voice by folks who should know (and think) better--or at least more critically.

National Review Online recently republished a fifty-year-old review of 'Atlas Shrugged' by Whitaker Chambers, which I strongly recommend.
62 posted on 03/11/2005 11:03:49 PM PST by Rembrandt_fan
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 60 | View Replies]

To: elfman2

I saved "Atlas Dined" as a bookmark and read it every year. It cracks me up.


63 posted on 03/11/2005 11:22:44 PM PST by sonserae
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 27 | View Replies]

To: Hank Kerchief

Didn't Ayn Rand have other friends and colleagues write about her? What about their opinion in respects to the Brandens?

I love Ayn Rand...one of my favorite authors. There are some things that she did that were opposite her philosophy. She was into integrity and truth but her extra-marital affair would negate both those philosophies wouldn't they? When you marry, you make a contract "forsaking all others"...so her not abiding by that is going against her philosophy is it not? Just wondering.


64 posted on 03/11/2005 11:25:19 PM PST by sonserae
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: FreeKeys

Please add me to the Ayn Rand list. Thanks


65 posted on 03/11/2005 11:30:52 PM PST by sonserae
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 46 | View Replies]

To: jackbob

You must read Atlas Shrugged!!! I actually listened to the unabridged version of it on audio!!! It took me 3 1/2 months of listening to it almost everyday. I did a lot of rewinding!


66 posted on 03/11/2005 11:32:21 PM PST by sonserae
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 44 | View Replies]

To: aynrandfreak

My two favorite authors are Ayn Rand and C.S. Lewis. One an atheist and one a Christian. I always wished I could see the two of them in a debate. It would be so fascinating.


67 posted on 03/11/2005 11:34:53 PM PST by sonserae
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 56 | View Replies]

To: West Coast Conservative
I was thinking of her this morning while reading the Bankruptcy Bill. Some people make money from "Washington Ability". So I looked it up and there it was on page 58, paperback edition.
68 posted on 03/11/2005 11:40:03 PM PST by investigateworld (Another California Refugee in Oregon)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies]

To: USF

Thanks for the ping USF!


69 posted on 03/11/2005 11:45:02 PM PST by jan in Colorado
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 42 | View Replies]

To: elfman2; Huck
An oldie but goodie!! Thanks for linking the send-up.



Big Sister is Watching You ... a review of Atlas Shrugged by Whittaker Chambers.

Putin Advisor Extols Ayn Rand

70 posted on 03/12/2005 12:25:53 AM PST by Askel5 († Cooperatio voluntaria ad suicidium est legi morali contraria. †)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 27 | View Replies]

To: Big Horn

=== I believe she had class.


Yeah you rite.

Only classy chicks describe pregnancy as an infection or assert that friendship ruins a marriage.


71 posted on 03/12/2005 12:28:01 AM PST by Askel5 († Cooperatio voluntaria ad suicidium est legi morali contraria. †)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 50 | View Replies]

To: Wuli; jennyp
There is a scene [in "The Fountainhead"] where the architect Howard Roark gives a speech in his own defense at his trial.

Hmmmm, I don't remember that scene. Must not have been important.

72 posted on 03/12/2005 4:16:49 AM PST by PatrickHenry (<-- Click on my name. The List-O-Links for evolution threads is at my freeper homepage.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 54 | View Replies]

To: ModelBreaker
Until the 350 page speech by John Galt. Snooze

I have to admit, that was pretty hard to get through.

73 posted on 03/12/2005 4:17:08 AM PST by ShadowDancer (As for the types of comments I make,sometimes I just, By God,get carried away with my own eloquence.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 47 | View Replies]

To: Larry Lucido

Do you anything about why Alan Greenspan left the movement?


74 posted on 03/12/2005 4:28:27 AM PST by foolscap
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: Larry Lucido

She may have had a "great mind", but she was a lousy judge of character. This is a fatal flaw.


75 posted on 03/12/2005 4:42:23 AM PST by kittymyrib
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: West Coast Conservative

Try "The Fountainhead", too.


76 posted on 03/12/2005 4:45:51 AM PST by Chef Dajuan
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies]

To: Wuli

Yeah, but no one alive today could play Roark as well as Gary Cooper did.

But yeah, that speech would shake up all the Ellsworth Tooheys on the left and in the MSM. (The Wynand media?)


77 posted on 03/12/2005 4:53:46 AM PST by Chef Dajuan
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 54 | View Replies]

To: sonserae; elfman2; Askel5
I saved "Atlas Dined" as a bookmark and read it every year. It cracks me up.

Me, too, and I wrote it! That's great that it makes you laugh. I am still very happy with it. I think there's pretty good punch lines spread through the whole thing. I rememeber writing it pretty much in one sitting. If I recall correctly, I was about 75% of the way through Atlas Shrugged at the time, and the style was starting to drive me nuts. Anyway, that was very cool as the creator of Atlas Dined to read your remark. It was also great to find a place like FR to publish it or else no one would have ever seen it. FReegards,

78 posted on 03/12/2005 5:41:52 AM PST by Huck (I only type LOL when I'm really LOL.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 63 | View Replies]

To: Hank Kerchief

I have assigned Atlas Shrugged in some of my seminar classes. For Randians, and, heck, for all, a great book with quasi-Randian principles in a novel format (and much shorter than "Atlas Shrugged") is Kyle Mills' "Smoke Screen." I use that book in my Business and Economic History class for "what if" questions.


79 posted on 03/12/2005 6:00:18 AM PST by LS (CNN is the Amtrak of news)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: West Coast Conservative

The prose isn't very good. But, one can see elements of the book coming to life today ( in maybe a slightly different guise - property rights, corporate subsidies, etc. ).


80 posted on 03/12/2005 6:24:38 AM PST by Tench_Coxe
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20 ... 41-6061-8081-100 ... 301-319 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson