Objectivist Schisms: an Overview by Neil Parille

As observers of Objectivism know, schisms are a perennial part of the world of Objectivism. In particular, the “official Objectivism” going back to Ayn Rand, which has continued into today with the Ayn Rand Institute (ARI), has been particularly prone to dust-ups, breaks, and even excommunications.  I don’t know of any sociological studies of schisms that might shed light on this, but there may be a couple reasons.  First, Objectivism is a relatively small movement, and most people tend to know each other.  This means that disputes will tend to become personal.  Second, many associates of Ayn Rand are still alive.  Hence protecting her legacy in their eyes likely heightens the gravity of any disputes.
 

The biggest schism in the Objectivist movement was Ayn Rand’s break in 1968 with Nathaniel and Barbara Branden.  The Brandens were the chief promoters of Objectivism, particularly through the Nathaniel Branden Institute.  While the details remain somewhat obscure, the rupture began because Nathaniel and Rand had years earlier commenced an affair which eventually grew cold.  When Rand wanted to restart the affair, the much younger Branden balked at this, in large part because he was having an affair with a beautiful young model and actress, which he concealed from Rand for years.  When Rand found out about his affair, she denounced Nathaniel in her own inimitable way.  In her “To Whom It May Concern Statement,” she never mentioned that she and Branden had an affair, nor Branden’s clandestine affair with the model.  She went on to denounce him for failing to devote his efforts to advance Objectivism and she all but accused him of stealing from her. She did hint that Nathaniel had betrayed her in an unspecified way:

This year, in a long series of discussions, held at his request to help him solve what he characterized as his psycho-epistemological problems, I was shocked to discover that he was consistently failing to apply to his own personal life and conduct, not only the fundamental philosophical principles of Objectivism, but also the psychological principles he himself had enunciated and had written and lectured about. For example: he was unable or unwilling to identify the motivation of some of his actions or the nature of his long-range goals; he admitted that in many respects he was acting on the basis of unidentified feelings.

As Nathaniel later wrote in his memoir, Rand’s attack was so “over the top” that people suspected that he was an alcoholic or a child molester.  Both Nathaniel and Barbara responded, countering Rand’s allegations of wrongdoing.  Nathaniel hinted that there had been an affair and conceded that he concealed something important of Rand.  He explicitly denied her allegations of financial wrongdoing.
After the Branden split, there were other schisms during Rand’s life.  After her death, Leonard Peikoff, Rand’s self-proclaimed “intellectual heir,” started the ARI.  Peikoff shortly thereafter split with philosopher David Kelley over Kelley’s contention that Objectivism was an “open system.”  Peikoff’s denunciation, in which he purported to speak for Rand, was vitriolic.  More splits, generally of a lesser significance, have continue until the present.

Objectivism and the Descent Into Pseudoscience

The debate over at www.richarddawkins.net vs "The Passion of Ayn Rand's Critics" author Jim Valliant now appears to be over, as it seems Valliant has retired. It has however been most revealing as an example of what seems to be the trend within Objectivism towards the embrace of pseudoscience. Among other rather amazing claims, Valliant attempted to pass off his own "introspections" as a compelling empirical basis for Ayn Rand's theory of volition, and when pressed to name any of the numerous "scientists" he initially claimed were Objectivists, could only offer the anti-relativity crank Petr Beckmann*. This apparent trend we will explore further here at ARCHNblog, as it is corroborates Nyquist's thesis that Objectivism in practice only pays lipservice to scientific standards. But what are the underlying drivers in the philosophy that explain this? In a post at www.richarddawkins.net I offer one speculation as to why:

Dave, I'd like to touch on a central point that risks being overlooked.

Yes, Rand and her followers are generally - and as Mr Valliant demonstrates with his "Objecto-empiricism", even hilariously - ignorant of science. This is basically admitted every time they attempt to ring-fence some of her (and their) absurdities by appealing to a "philosophic" context, rather than a scientific one.

But the key point is this: basically Rand believed philosophy should quite literally set the terms for science (she says this quite clearly in the ITOE, in a remarkable passage where she insists that philosophers like herself will tell scientists the "proper" meaning of the words they use**). Philosophy is always in control; it might refute science; but it can never be the other way around. Philosophy is the master discipline - with Objectivism at the summit of that - from which "true" science (as well as ethics, politics, aesthetics etc) flows.

One can easily see the seduction here. The dream of the kind of intellectual power that allows you to make pronouncements over what is "proper" to even disciplines that you are ignorant of, has, like other more obvious dreams of power, perennial appeal. Further, it is a power that seems remarkably easily achieved; for it is basically very easy to play with words, as the Aristotelian method of definition that Rand adopted inevitably leads to (just as it lead to the scholasticism of the Middle Ages). This in turn empowers people like Mr Valliant to rock up to a science forum and begin instructing all and sundry as to what does and does not constitute "empirical" evidence. (And surely enough, with sufficiently determined sophistry, we see the determinist arguments from the massive empirical successes of physics and chemistry become dismissed as "empty arguments from authority", and his personal "introspections" promoted as both "empirical" and even "objective.")

It could be that Mr Valliant merely thinks it is Opposites Day here at Dawkins.net. However, I think there's a bigger story here. I conjecture that it is this underlying dream, and its accompanying scholastic methodology, that accounts for this peculiar picture of a movement ostensibly dedicated to reason, freedom, science, and productivity exhibiting, as you have already noted, so many alarming tendencies in the reverse direction.

*Even this appears to be incorrect, as Beckmann was apparently merely influenced by Rand. More about Beckmann here
**see pp289/290 "Introduction To Objectivist Epistemology"

The Passion of "Ayn Rand Contra Human Nature"'s Critics

Discovered dissing "Ayn Rand Contra Human Nature" over at at Richard Dawkins' site (registration required), James Valliant, author of "The Passion of Ayn Rand's Critics", offers to personally critique Nyquist's dread tome. But then sadly he changes his mind.

(some scrolling may be required)

Update: Post retitled due to the excellent suggestion of Anon in comments. The exchange is particularly valuable as a verbatim example of what Objectivists such as Valliant pass off as "empirical" support for their views. As I wrote, Valliant simply has "persistent difficulty differentiating an imaginative conjecture from an empirical reality. Something of a problem." This problem is of course perfectly consistent with the marvellous combination of sophistry, sycophancy, and fantasy that is "The Passion of Ayn Rand's Critics", the miscellaneous weirdnesses of which the ARCHNblog has outlined here, here, and here.

It's probably just as well as he didn't mention Rand's views on evolution there...

Cringe and Win! - The 5 Most Embarrassing Moments in "PARC"

At last I finally get around to a roundup of the 5 most cringe-inducing moments in James Valliant's deeply cracked "The Passion of Ayn Rand's Critics." As the late great Orson Welles once said, so many options....

Feel free to add your own favourite. Best comment (judged by me, no correspondence entered into etc) wins a free copy of Greg Nyquist's "Ayn Rand Contra Human Nature."

5. The Surprise Party of Evil

Random House (why, even the name is irrationalist!) throw Rand a surprise party to celebrate the launch of 'Atlas Shrugged'. In return, Rand throws a control-freaky snit about other people trying to 'control her context'. Later she launches into a analysis of the merits of surprise parties and hilariously declares that, philosophically, she can find "no valid reason for them". Equally hilariously, Grand High Inquistor Valliant's ever-alert nostrils manage to detect the scent of the devil in the seemingly innocent fact that Nathaniel and Barbara Branden played along with the Surprise Party of Evil: "It was the Brandens who were part of the effort to "control" Rand's context through deception...We shall see that this is not the last time that they will attempt to do this..."

4. Jealous Gal

In a feat perhaps unparallelled in the annals of groupiedom, Valliant manages to insert a compliment to Rand on almost page of PARC; sometimes in every paragraph, and occasionally in every sentence. He attributes to her literally superhuman qualities such as immunity to envy or jealousy - as he must, of course, as such emotions are inconsistent with Rand's philosophy, and Valliant's main objective is rehabilitating her reputation as Objectivism's irreproachable exemplar. Unfortunately, groupiedom is blind; these claims are contradicted by his own book. For example, jealousy:

"Female jealousy, in the traditional sense" writes Valliant, "was alien to Rand, and her ability to remain rational - whatever personal feelings she had on the subject - is truly impressive."

But then from the very pages of PARC itself, here's Rand on Patrecia, Branden's glamorous new young cookie:

"...he kept insisting that he sees some wonderful qualities in her, which he could not define and which were not seen, nor even sensed, by anyone else (most emphatically not by me)..."

"And what did he get in exchange for his mind and soul? Nothing. That is the grotesque emptiness of evil. Nothing but the empty chatter with (Patrecia) at their lunches...listening to the theatrical prattling of a girl who bores much lesser minds within half an hour...what else was there to do with a girl of that kind?...If one looks at the above in realistic, existential terms, it becomes pure insanity: why would would a man want to give up all the values representing his mind and his career...in exchange for this sort of silly, trashy, vulgar, juvenile nonsense?"

"(Patrecia) was disgustingly phoney, and I felt strained..."

"Symbolically, this was a battle between my universe and (Patrecia's). Existentially and objectively, the choice to keep (Patrecia's) and to reject (mine) speaks for itself..."

"Existentially, he must not have any romantic or even friendship relationship with (Patrecia)..."

"I feel the strongest contempt I have ever felt - and I regard (Branden, for his relationship with Patrecia) as the worst traitor and the most immoral person I have ever met..."

Yes folks, it certainly is "remarkable" how Rand rises so objectively above mere "traditional female emotions"!

3. Comic Genius













Hey, who says Rand had no sense of humour?


2. Take My Wife - Please!

Perhaps Valliant's most bizarre flight of fantasy is his depiction of Rand and her husband Frank O'Connor as bold rebels against drab sexual orthodoxy - here to teach mankind a new "science of ethics", no less. Basically, Valliant argues that the Rand/Branden/O'Connor menage a trois - Rand's 18-year adultery with a star-struck Branden some 25 years her junior - was, despite obvious appearances, a supreme example of her "remarkable integrity". How so? Well, because - get this - her husband got off on it too. In support of his superbly pervy thesis, Valliant quotes Rand's notes from "Atlas Shrugged":

"(Rearden) takes pleasure in the thought of Dagny with another man, which is an unconscious acknowledgement that sex, as such, is great and beautiful, not evil and degrading."

Valliant declares that, far from resenting it as ordinary men might, for Rand a male "hero" would actually take pleasure in the thought of their loved one getting it on with "another hero". Not only that, but this type of male psychology is, according to Valliant, "almost certain to be an expression of her husband's own psychology...as Frank was...the model for her fictional heroes." For as a "loving husband", Valliant concludes that Frank must surely have "appreciated his wife's complex emotional - and intellectual - needs." What a guy! Far from being intensely angry and conflicted as the Brandens testify, and as one might reasonably expect from being cuckolded, Valliant insists that Frank possessed "such a sensitive and daring soul," that it "may well have given him the capacity to embrace his wife's quest for joy..." - perhaps even finding it "a sexual inspiration." As we say here in New Zealand...yeah,right!

And then the cringing clincher:"Such a scenario,"writes Valliant,"however probable..." Yes, that's right, Valliant really says this! Er, James, shouldn't that really read "however improbable"? Poor, poor Frank.

1. "Too Much For Him"

PARC's biggest faux pas is certainly Valliant's decision to publish Rand's personal notes on the breakup of her menage a trois with Nathaniel Branden. As I've written elsewhere, far from rehabilitating her intellectual reputation among non-Objectivists, they're more likely to sink it for all time. On one level, the pseudo-psychological drivel is bad enough; but it's made worse by the almost poignant portrait of self-delusion that these notes paint of Rand herself. She torturously 'analyses' Branden's supposed 'psycho-epistemological repressions' for page after daft page; yet never does she seriously examine her own reponsibility for the state of the relationship. Does she ever think: Gee, it maybe wasn't such a good idea to have an adulterous relationship with a fanboy half my age? That, as the saying goes, there's no fool like an old fool? Does she ever pick up the moral courage to end the years of "greyness" herself with Branden?; to figure out the obvious reality of the situation and simply tell him it's over? Nope. Her self awareness is zero. Everything that's wrong with their relationship is always and everywhere Branden's fault, due to him being a 'secretly repressed social metaphysician'; not because there's no fool like an old fool, and that the whole thing was obviously going to end in tears right from the start. Reality never enters into it. Rand's self-delusion eventually metastatizes into desperate self-aggrandisement in what will surely become an infamous passage:

"I am convinced that the clearest and probably conscious fear in his mind was the fear of admitting that I was 'too much for (Branden).'...I was too much for him - in every sense of the phrase and in a deeper sense than would apply to the type of men he despises. I want to stress this: I was and am too much for him. This is my full conviction, reached with the full power, logic, clarity and context of my mind..."

By this point, "The Passion of Ayn Rand's Critics" is too much for just about anybody.

The Real Deal

Till I get around to narrowing down the 5 most cringe-inducing moments in TPARC - it's what you call a target-rich environment - my Amazon review is here:

The Virtue of Sycophancy (3) - Cringe and Win!

Author and occasional Rand critic Michael Prescott recently described us as "intelligent, calm, and serious". So very true, although he did neglect to mention 'handsome'. Yet despite this, there remain things that, try as we might, defy even our best efforts to read with a straight face. Such is James Valliant's "The Passion of Ayn Rand's Critics". It's not every day we get to read a book as gloriously cracked as this one - in fact we confidently predict Valliant's vast apparatchik tome will do more to enhance Objectivism's cult-like reputation than anything her critics could come up with.

So as an ARCHNblog special competition, in the next day or so we'll be posting the 5 most cringe-inducing moments in TPARC. All you have to do is pick your favourite, and explain why in comments. Best explanation wins a free copy of "Ayn Rand Contra Human Nature" via Amazon and courtesy of us. Bonus points for wretched verbal excess. Stay tuned.

The Virtue of Sycophancy (2)

We are not worthy! James Valliant on Ayn Rand:

"The potential impact of Rand's work is comparable only to that of a great religious or philosophical system."(217)

"Rand's own mind cannot be cut into parts - her extraordinarily logical cognitive method was intimately tied to her passionate 'sense of life.'"(220-21)

"Rand's ignorance of the wide array of lies, however, could not survive the careful moral thinking which Rand was bringing to the matter."(255)

"But Rand's perceptiveness, as usual, goes a step deeper: she concludes that Branden's mind is not functioning in a reality-based way."(265)

"Rand certainly possessed a healthy self-esteem...But Rand also made allowance for a whole range of other values and options just as objective as passionately loving her."(268)

"Rand's advice is sincere and obviously, a powerful, if incomplete diagnosis of Branden's psychology. She may not know all the facts, but this makes her analysis all the more powerful" (282)

"Bullseye, Miss Rand."(282)

"Rand's mind is the equivalent of a Magnetic Resonance Imaging device in psychological diagnosis."(287)

"Again one must be impressed by both the honesty of Rand's sentiments and the power of her insight."(291)

Gee, now that's objectivity for you. My personal favourite so far however is:

"One wants to cry out to Rand and tell her the truth, despite the logical paradoxes involved in time travel"(271)

That qualification added no doubt, just to quell any tiny whisker of irrationality that might be suggested by the term 'time travel'. Of course, when it comes to that distinctive mix of blissful egoism and equally blissful lack of self-awareness, it is hard to go past Rand herself. After Branden breaks off with her she writes:

"I am convinced that the clearest and probably conscious fear in his mind was the fear of admitting that I was 'too much for him.'...I was too much for him - in every sense of the phrase and in a deeper sense than would apply to the type of men he despises. I want to stress this: I was and am too much for him. This is my full conviction, reached with the full power, logic, clarity and context of my mind..."

Etc.

(Quotes from "The Passion of Ayn Rand's Critics:The Case Against the Brandens")

The Virtue of Sycophancy (1)

I'm midway through James Valliant's book "The Passion of Ayn Rand's Critics". In it Valliant seeks to polish up Rand's tarnished image and debunk Objectivism's reputation as a 'cult of personality' by blaming everything on Rand's lover and his wife, Nathaniel and Barbara Branden. But the book completely backfires: the 'cult' impressions are hardly going to be dispelled by breathlessly sycophantic doorstops like this; especially when they are also as tendentious as they are fawning.

Valliant manfully tries to establish his objectivity in the introduction:
"I had no illusions that Rand could be without fault or flaw. We will see that Rand herself admitted to being mistaken about something (or someone) on more than one occasion, and even her staunchest defenders have admitted that Rand's anger could sometimes be unjust."(5)

Now I admit I am halfway through, but so far Valliant's self-restraint hasn't lasted further than that paragraph. There is nothing that Rand does wrong that Valliant does not bend over backwards to defend from every angle conceivable - plus several inconceivable ones for good measure. In contrast, there is nothing that the Brandens can do right. Apparently, if Rand cheats on her husband Frank with Nathaniel, that's because she and Frank are intellectual and moral 'giants', whose revolutionary ethical system is obviously far too advanced for the mediocre and irrational society they found themselves living in. On the other hand, if Branden cheats on Rand with his bit of crumpet, that's because he has 'the soul of a rapist'!

You really can't make this sort of thing up. Anyway, if I come across any examples where Rand does something wrong - no matter how trivial - and Valliant doesn't mount a weirdly elaborate defence of it, then I'll post it.