Ayn Rand Cult

I just finished reading this book and am compelled to write about it, a long overdue dissection of Rand and her sycophants, of her philosophy, and Objectivist history and precedents. It is exceptionally well researched and systematically presented. I was interested in this book because it combines several other interests: sociology, religion, philosophy, history and the Rand phenomenon itself. The amazing thing about Ayn Rand and her legacy is just how little critical analysis of it was generally available prior to this book. Her "true believers" in the enormously ironic "cult of individualism" have controlled her legacy tightly. Rand herself said something to the effect that you should take what you like from my philosophy and ignore what you don't like - just don't call it "Objectivism". That seems to me a very intelligent request. To be a "follower" of Objectivism is a contradiction in terms. While reading this book I thought that someone not already knowledgeable about Rand and Objectivism might find the level of detail about these people less than interesting. Probably true. If you haven't read Rand, the Cliff Notes version of Atlas Shrugged might be a good place to start. After her two novels, Rand wrote essays and published collections of them. "Capitalism" is probably the most consistently interesting, but all of the collections are assembled intelligently and your mileage may vary. But what really made this book for me was the last chapter, which I just finished. It is titled "The Ayn Rand That Might Have Been" and posits an account of an alternate, more "rational", fictional life Rand could have lead herself instead of the sick one she did lead. This chapter brilliantly illustrates the author's arguments in a manner that not only essentially recalls Rand's own literary style, technique and devices, but updates them (necessarily, I suppose) to correct for the author's criticisms. It was a lot of fun to read that last chapter after a somewhat dry, systematic analysis of Rand. It was sad to read about Rand and the damage she did to the people around her, and one can't help but feel sorry for her wasted potential and for the fact that what looks a lot like what we would call a personality disorder went untreated. Sad but instructive. And just because she was sick and engaged in sloppy research doesn't mean her ideas were wrong. Rand is accused of borrowing most of her philosophy and this book makes a good case for that charge. But did manage to make these ideas part of the political currency of at least two generations, no small feat. This book is a corrective to the official Objectivist party line, and a very fine one.

Somewhere in 'Philosophical Detection,' Rand notes that when a philosophical system accomplishes the exact opposite of its expressed aims, one may be sure that it is actually a system of rationalisation.In this fairly thorough work, Jeff Walker applies this very insight to Rand's own little personality cult - which, claiming devotion to the ideals of reason, independence and creativity, actually accomplishes only the creation of a stifling atmosphere of conformity and Rand-worship.By the time Walker is through with his full-frontal assault on Rand, it is painfully obvious that 'Objectivism' is little more than a system of rationalisation for Rand's own whims, errors, subjective tastes, and paranoid delusions.Walker does not spare the rod regarding Rand's associates, either. In particular, the chapters on Nathaniel Branden, self-esteemer extraordinaire, and on Leonard Peikoff, the Peter Keating of the 'Objectivist' movement, are masterful and eye-opening. (The chapter on Alan Greenspan is less so, but only because I disagree with the economic viewpoint from which Walker criticises Greenspan's fiscal policies. This chapter would have been more effective if Greenspan had been critiqued from the point of view of, say, Murray Rothbard, whose opinions on noneconomic matters are represented throughout the remainder of the book.)Read this book at once and wake up from the illusion that Rand was a great thinker. She was no such thing.

I know several people who have been consumed by Objectivism. This book does an excellent job of explaining how and why this happens. I highly recommend it, whether you are a fan of Rand, hate her, or have never even heard of her.

I've had a long-term relationship destroyed by my then-girlfriend's involvement with Objectivism. From the time she decided to join an Objectivist study group at our college, to the final disintegration of our involvement three years later, her personality progressively changed from shy, warm, loving and idealistic to ideological, cold, bitter and alienated. Her Objectivist friends constantly encouraged her to end our relationship because I was not an Objectivist and had no plans to become one. Small difficulties that we used to deal with easily became huge problems that to her typified my moral debasement. By the time she decided she would have no further contact with me I was depressed and confused as to how a love that had been so intense and fulfilling could so quickly disintegrate into a sustained attack against my deepest held values of autonomy, rationality and self-respect -- values which Objectivism claims to advocate.Reading this book was like having a veil of ignorance lifted concerning the pain and confusion of that relationship. I am now able to see, thanks to Walker's detailed and well-written compilation of data, how my ex-girlfriend's change in personality fits into a larger pattern of control which Objectivism exercises over its followers, whether they belong to Peikoff's sect, David Kelley's, or any number of smaller splinter groups. Even many of those who claim to be free-lance Objectivists, devotees of Rand herself and not one of her interpreters, tend to manifest many of these characteristics.Though Rand and Objectivism tout reason, self-esteem and autonomy, they rely on their followers' *lack* of these virtues. The Ayn Rand Cult explains this in detail. I highly recommend this book to anyone who has had or does have respect for Rand as a philosopher or political theorist. She was neither. A huckster of false beliefs, yes; an enlightened thinker, definitely not.