On having betrayed Ayn Rand 50 years ago
I received the following today from an Atlasphere member. Our form for removing yourself from the member database asks for a reason for the removal and, inside that form, he wrote:
You are associated with the Brandens, and novelist Erika Holzer, who do not represent Objectivism and have morally betrayed it’s creator. Out of respect for Ayn Rand and her philosophy of Objectivism, I withdraw my membership and support from your institution.
In the six years since I launched the Atlasphere, I’ve received only a handful of e-mails such as this one. It is usually from a young Objectivist, very sincere and committed to the ideas Ayn Rand taught — and still overly deferential to those who teach Objectivism as some sort of secular religion.
Today I sent the following in response:
No problem, I have turned off the rebilling on your subscription and removed your account.
I have a question for you to consider, if you are willing: If you had known someone for many years, and that person had consistently treated you, and everyone else with whom you saw them come into contact, with unfailing decency and respect — would you reject them if you heard a rumor they had “betrayed” Ayn Rand (whatever that means)?
I find myself in this situation from time to time, and my integrity requires me to (1) trust the evidence of my own senses much more than I trust decades-old rumors and (2) allow people to make mistakes from time to time, without judging them to be rotten to their core.
To whatever extent I give credence to the rumors you and I have both heard, I also must consider some fairly well-corroborated rumors that Ayn Rand herself could, at times, be pretty rotten to people in her life.
In general, I think the Objectivist movement would be better off if its adherents stopped denouncing and undermining one another so much. Naturally, many in the movement disagree, but it does not change my sense that they are wasting valuable time and energy, and causing harm to the overall movement.
There’s no particular need to answer. I respect that you must come to your own conclusions, and hearing mine may make little difference. This is, however, my perspective on the matter, and now seemed an appropriate time to explain it. I hope one day it will make more sense than it might make today.
Excellent response.
Joshua,
Thoughtful and well-written post. My position on this is that the only way to make a better determination is to stay engaged and keep considering the evidence. The “sanction” argument is a lousy one because it cuts you off from critical sources of information.
The real waste of time in the movement is the lack of intellectual adventuresomeness. I think the obsession with personal biography and denunciation is but one symptom.
Whatever this young man thinks of Barbara and Nathaniel, he should try to benefit from what they have written. Nathaniel, particularly, has written brilliantly with an impressive body of work behind him. Even where I disagree with him (I particularly disagree with his characterization of anxiety in The Psychology of Self Esteem), I find what he has to say in his books on psychology to be pathbreaking.
Jim
very fair response, i’ve had to give similar, myself.
Ayn Rand sometimes seemed deeply committed to ensuring that her ideas would not get taken seriously beyond a limited, narcissistic, and relatively powerless clique. That she excommunicated the Brandens makes some sense just on personal grounds – it’s a breakup story, such things happen. But you can’t say the same about her reaction to John Hospers (articles at the bottom of this page): disagree with her in any serious respect, especially in public, and she will never speak to you again.
I doubt there will ever be much of an Objectivist movement per se, especially since Rand effectively claimed copyright on the term (wanting it to mean nothing more or less than “Randist”). It’s too likely to be dominated by people like your correspondent. If ideas like Rand’s gain steam, it will only be as part of a much larger, looser, more open and diverse body of libertarian thought and action.