Posted on 12/12/2014 6:20:49 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
Nathaniel Branden, who has died aged 84,was for many years the lover and chief disciple of the American writer and libertarian monstre sacré Ayn Rand (1905-82); the story of their relationship and its bitter ending served to illustrate some of the pitfalls of her philosophy of ethical selfishness.
When they first met in 1950 Nathan Blumenthal, as he then was, was a 19-year-old Canadian psychology student at the University of California, Los Angeles. Ayn Rand, a Russian-Jewish emigrée in her late forties,was the bestselling author of The Fountainhead (1943), a torrid ideological melodrama of Nietzschean individualism, whose merciless celebration of the human ego, unfettered by religious restraints, not to mention its racy dose of sadomasochistic sex, had attracted an army of young admirers.....
[SNIP]
......In what became known as the “Objecti-schism”,in 1968 Branden was effectively kicked out of his own institute, while, in vengeful fury, Rand wrote an open letter in The Objectivist accusing him of “moral failures” and unspecified crimes against Objectivity. A week or so later,Barbara Branden, too,was excommunicated. Ayn Rand spent most of the rest of her days as a recluse,alienated from old friends,most of whom she had discarded for disobedience. She died of lung cancer in 1982. Her husband had predeceased her in 1979 after years of alcohol abuse......
In California,meanwhile,Branden began repackaging Rand’s ideas,shifting their focus from self-interest to self-help. He founded a new Institute of Biocentric Psychology, and wrote a book, The Psychology of Self-Esteem (1969).
Ayn Rand’s 1968 expulsion of Branden sent shock waves through the ranks of the faithful,many of whom had come to see him as the embodiment of a Randian superhero. It seemed that her cult might never recover. But it did,her visceral hatred of collectivism in all its forms inspiring the Right-wing “Tea Party” movement, whose protest placards often bear the legend “Atlas Shrugs”....
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
Entertaining read. More a critique of Branden and Rand than his obit.
Rand was a cougar? Ick.
There is the “Atlas Shrugged” anti-collectivist mentality as part of the Tea Party - but much of the Randian philosophy is not relevant at all.
Tea Party Indeed.
Will they have us beleiving Ayn Rand was the Godmother of the Tea Party movement?
~sheesh~
Rand hated libertarians and hated being called a libertarian. Ninety percent of the people initially attracted to Rand’s orbit ended up leaving and becoming libertarians. This just drove her nuts. But then her whole agree-with-me-or-you-are-evil mantra was nuts to begin with.
No - a Panther.
:: the bestselling author of The Fountainhead (1943), a torrid ideological melodrama of Nietzschean individualism ::
No! Absolutely no relativistic agenda here. None at all.
Move along, people...
Rand was an atheist, and her ideology of being non-altruistic is/was diametrically opposed to Christianity.
The Rand cult is profoundly WEIRD.
Rand reminds me of Madalyn Murray O’Hair as an atheist who became her own god. She’s fortunate that she didn’t meet the same fate. They both seemed like miserable people.
AFAIK, Ayn Rand’s problem isn’t so much that she is libertarian. She got it so right on the economic and capitalist idea.
She fell short because of her atheism and self-centeredness (is that a word?) in her philosophy.
I wish she would have acknowledged that we are creative and working beings because we are made in our Creator’s image. Somehow that denial of our uniqueness in the universe—that tenant of communism—stuck with her after she left the Bolsheviks in Russia.
I saw that movie. Helen Mirren, though a flaming liberal, is a fine actress.
She also played the Queen in The Queen and an Israeli assassin in “The Debt”.
Rand ping please.
Quite right. The objectivists absolutely despised libertarians.
I love British writers!
Right. And libertarianism which promotes non-aggression instead of non-altruism proved to be generally more appealing to those initially attracted to Rand. Her in-your-face style drew a lot of attention, but interest in her movement didn’t usually go much farther. She did generate a lot of lasting interest in free markets, private property rights, and opposition to Socialism. But most that interest eventually translated into support for libertarianism, not objectivism. It made her furious.
The Ministry of Propaganda is going to love this hit piece.
The root difference between objectivism and libertarianism is non-altruism versus non-aggression. Libertarians have no problem with self-sacrifice as long as it's voluntary.
Ann was a twisted freak
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