Barbara Branden on the Psychology of Ayn Rand 

Rands system has a system of checks and balances to make sure you are not raitonalizing yourself It’s called objectivism. Not rationalizism

@@LakevusParadice Well, that system did not work when dealing with her attraction to Branden....

@@adrianainespena5654 you’ll have to be more specific but the attraction seems appropriate to me. The ending? Probably not. But I can feel the frustration of being too old and your younger lover wants a younger woman since you can’t have kids. Pretty frustrating

@@LakevusParadice She should have realized that double adultery was NOT the best way to deal with her disciples. That she could find in herself reasons to do something so devoid of common sense shows that her checks against rationalization did not work. She could have been attracted to Branden, but she was free not to give in to temptation and thus maintain the proper relationship of teacher and student. Just because she wanted something did not mean that she should get it. That's a lesson that children have to learn and that she managed to forget.

@@adrianainespena5654 Rand was not just any person. And to find a person as intelligent as her to be her partner is a very difficult task. Which is why her situation is fine. She got her intellect match from Branden and soulful match from frank.

Exactly. Her writing is very clear.

Brad Williams - I see your point. And found Barbara enlightening and added insights I wasn't aware of.

Absolutely. She was an open critique of feminism or any form of collectivism like nationalism or racism. But here in the video description they say that she could be viewed as as feminist just because her gender identity as female.

Barbara is uniquely qualified to explain Ayn. Ayn had her own neuroses, and that is undeniable. She was brilliant, of course, but not particularly enlightened about HERSELF.

Think of it this way: by discussing someone who displays complicated characteristics, perhaps help them see the complexities within themselves. That may be far from a truth, but is the discussion of such an individual something to despise? Perhaps the best thing to do, if your stand is to hate those who discuss and/or question anyone of distinction, then do yourself a favour and don't watch/listen to such recordings ✌️

Common sense hides from those with high degrees. It is most uncommon.

@@LaVidaLocaHomie According to William James, common sense and a sense of humor are the same thing, but at different speeds. Dear Ayn had no sense of humor.

@@adrianainespena5654 Tom Snyder: I never went to Harvard. Ayn: That is to your advantage.

I'll give her the benefit of the doubt. But seriously, a lot of evil has been done in her name.

@@andrew_owens7680 What alleged evil and by what standard?

​@@TeaParty1776No answer of course.

Yea, a typical leftist freak rumor. Always thinking sex. That is as deep as you can get.

@@EarthSurferUSA That's not a rumor. It has nothing to do with "left" or "right."

This is touched upon in a biography of Rand written by Barbara. They ultimately reconciled before their death. Rands actions (in my view) were bad, but the real villain in that trio was Nathaniel himself

It’s a cult.

She deserved it

I think she wouldn't have enjoyed that. She was stuck in her own beliefs. She was too quick to dismiss others who lacked her power of logic. She also too quickly dismissed ideas and people and could never accept errors of fact or judgement but also categorized people either good or evil based upon their ideas. She was always guilty of 'psychologizing' She had a strong sense of being self righteous. Orwell once said, 'some ideas are so wrong, they can only be accepted by an intelligent mind'. Her relation with Nathaniel Brandon is a perfect example. Their age difference was too wide to be what she wanted it to be. How she handled it is a perfect example of being very very wrong and lacking practical wisdom. She created a 'shit show' that was embarrassing to everyone personally involved and also for her friends & admirers. She made a point of surrounding herself with people who weren't on her intellectual level and it became even more so in her later life. I was exposed to her writings when I was 20 yrs old. I attended a few lectures at NBI. I am grateful to her for writing and her thoughts on ethics. But I think I've gone my own way and I am very happy to get out of the Rand, 'gravitational ''orbit''. :)

avro549B As a teen I used to admire her then I was exposed to the African world view which I suspect was outside her purview. In fact, I would venture to say she thought very little of the African mind. Her stance on atheism would’ve been easily subverted by an African Intellect. The deification of man’s intellect by Rand could only have been agreed upon by our ancestors with the suspicion that the long arm of a divine law rendered it possible.

@@fntime She was stuck in reality. Have you ever worked your way through a few degrees to lean something marketable in what is left of our free market, started your business and began making more money than any union worker in the world? I did. I do business in a small industry that is about as lassiez-Faire as it gets today, and I could not have done this well in any other nation, as they practice less individual liberty to do so. Her philosophy is the core of human liberty, and the closer we can live by it the more civility and prosperity we will earn. Not much of what you stated about her is reality.

@@ptahhotep8888 Ayn Rand Quote: (from a you-tube vid of her thoughts of racism, very powerful). "There have been morons and geniuses from every race", and I know that is true. From that I derived my own saying: "The color of the skin does not dictate the thoughts of the mind."

@@EarthSurferUSA Have you ever met her? The point of the video was Rand's personal psychology and her shortcomings of being a leader of a movement. Her books are very inspiring but the issue is HER. You are confusing your own purported 'achievements' & her issues as a human being who had shortcomings that ultimately sunk the movement that could have been a force for good. I think her books will live on much longer than her shortcomings. I don't think by your comment you know very little about her personal reality.

As a libertarian now-objectivist, they erroneously distinguish between ethics and morals, claiming objective ethics and subjective morality. They are simply philosophically naiive people who have the right heading. I think objectivists would do well to tone down the vitriol they have for people who otherwise agree with them more than 99% of the population and represent the most significant base of potential compatriots. Libertarians, like literally everyone else, are confused. I find it irrational and cruel the way they are treated by people like Charles Tew.

Anyone truly confident in objectivity of ethical truth and understanding what it entails would welcome the diversity in moral doctrines - for in the objective world, let the best win out and converge to the truth. Anyone distrusting of this objectivity and suspecting that morality is man made, historically and socially constructed would surely do anything to stamp out any differing views.

I met Barbara Branden by accident when I was in my 20's. She was a very kind and gracious woman.

@@markv785 Good point. She seems to have projected her vision of the ideal man on to Frank O'Conner, but he seems to have been pretty much of a "regular guy," certainly not a creative genius of heroic stature. According to Barbara Branden's "The Passion of Ayn Rand," Frank would have been happy operating a flourist shop. His painting "Man Also Rises" which appears on the 25th anniversary cover of The Fountainhead, is not terribly impressive, but it seems to have been an attempt to create something grand and heroic. But it's pretty awkward (in my view, anyway).

​@@richardterrell1946Frank O'Connor had operated an entire ranch, and very happily. As opposed to a floral shop.

That would have been in California. According to Branden Frank was not enthusiastic about moving to New York City. I believe it was in New York that he got into flower arrangement. He seems to have been a guy who valued contact with nature. Rand, perhaps, not so much, although there is that passage in The Fountainhead where the young man admires an architectural project of Roark's perfectly integrated with the natural environment.@@sandythomas8911

This is 1996. Rush Limbaugh had been using it since 1991.

Yes, because Branden evil and Peikoff good. I love Objectivism. I love Peikoff. I love Rand. But the large mass of Objectivists are cult members who betray everything they claim to believe by just taking the orthodox objectivist position on everything as a second-handed default.

@@s0lid_sno0ks There is a large mass of Objectivists? Where? Galt's Gulch?

I dont know but theres a Greenspan essay in Rands, _Capitalism_.

Economics in One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt

They're not Indians.

***** It positively has NOTHING to do with whether I like it or not, nor with whether you like it or not, nor the Spanish. It has to do with correctness, and it is universally recognized as politically and professionally incorrect to call Native Americans Indians, because they simply have nothing to do with India. If everyone were to adopt your retroactive behaviour of clinging onto past mistakes, we would never advance as humanity.

Objectivists. like the mature adults they are, find it possible to separate Rand, the human being, from Objectivism, the philosophy she created. We do not believe in shooting the messenger. To follow your line of thinking, we should not consider the Bible holy because it was written by mortal men. (Assuming you believe in the Bible, which I do not.) Do we avert our vision from the masterpiece "Starry Night" because the artist was insane? Do we walk out of a concert when the orchestra begins playing a concerto written by a deaf Beethoven? Of course not! We enjoy the creative work for what it is, as we should. Anti-Objectivists take great comfort and delight in trotting out tired old anecdotes about what a horrible person Rand was, but it doesn't detract from the elegance, truth and beauty of her philosophy. True, she was politically incorrect all the way, and I love her for that. I find it both amusing and sad that anti-Objectivists, when faced with the undeniability of her arguments, quickly lose patience and, like a spoiled child, resort to temper tantrums that include non-sequiters, name-calling, profanity and character assassination. Let them rant. They still can't credibly attack her philosophy with rationality, for it is rationality that forms the brick and morter of her philosophy. And that, by far, is Ayn Rand's most important and lasting legacy.

TheHomoludens Pffft. See my comment above.

I do not “believe in the Bible.” But like the Starry Night the Bible reveals to us who we are. It has been rightly said of the Bible it is like a mirror, if an ape looks in a saint will not look back out. The truths of the Bible are in the Bible because they are true, they are not true because they are in the Bible. For example, the development of monogamy in the Bible is reflective of the nature of the egalitarian relationship between men and women. All of us came from the union between a man and a woman. That is what marriage is. As for Rand being a human being and therefore subject to the foibles of life so that her philosophy should not be judged by her actions seems disingenuous. A philosophy that cannot be lived is an abstraction. It seems in this instance that the spoiled child in this case is Rand wanting to have her cake and eat it, too. I am not calling Rand names. I am saying her philosophy is inconsistent with reality. Rand’s psychological egoism is based on a materialistic world view. And while we start off in life with a self-centered concern to survive as we mature we learn that we are born into community. As Aristotle point out the State is prior to the person. Thus, we see our best interest is in the other whence cometh the golden rule, love your neighbor as you love yourself. But this borders on altruism. Rand rants and calls the philosopher Emmanuel Kant the most evil man in history. Kant was dealing with the problems of knowledge and morality which Rand does not address but dismisses as altruistic because not selfish?

machothunder666 You're right. Ideas need to compete in the "marketplace of ideas", analogous to the free market of products and services. This implies allowing a back-and-forth between oneself and one's opponents, analogous to the way competitors will force one to improve one's product or service. How can one believe that one will think of all the possible sound criticisms of one's ideas on one's own? In the fray, one's ideas are hopefully refined. This is basic to the intellectual life. Unfortunately, Rand never allowed this.

Well you don't have too agree with her philosophy. She wouldn't care what you thought.

This is an aspect of Ayn Rand's life history and personality that I, and many other admirers, do find hard to come to terms with. We find consolation in reminding ourselves that she had authored Atlas Shrugged. Dagny's calm response to Cheryl's totally mistaken attack on her, at the Cheryl-James Taggart wedding, IS Rand at her intellectual best. How sad that our hero's later responses in similar real-life situations contrast so badly with that. Adding to the pain: how did the author of Atlas Shrugged become such an apparent second-hander as to spend her time browsing through other peoples' mail-order lists in order to blacklist those who ordered Branden's latest book?

@@benvanrensburg4261 She had no self reflection. In fact, she had no sense of humor, which meant that she lacked to ability to see herself from the outside. I do not think that she could laugh at herself.... One example, I use glasses for driving and take the off when I go shopping as it is easier to read prices that way. To weeks ago I was coming out of the grocery store, and could not find my glasses. I went all over the store and could not find them. I went to the office and asked "I left my glasses here" and the lady said, "they are hanging off your blousel" I laughed an thanked her. Would Rand have laughed to find herself in such a predicament?

She wrote a book called, "The virtue of selfishness.", but she saw "being selfish" as a good thing, motivation, as long as you don't commit a crime against somebody else. Her basement stance starts with man's ability to "reason".

@jeep23862 What is meant by " you don't commit a crime against somebody else"? A infringement of their person, property or liberty to take action on in a free market society. For example, our government and the auto industry is guilty of destroying Tucker and his automobile in the 1940's. Simply put, "individual liberty" is protected by law. Money taken by force for any reason, is theft. It really is a simple and proper morality. Your union arguments are not true. There is a minimum wage, and I made quite a bit more working in non-union shops. Congratulations, you are half communist. The USA will surly fail, because we lost our morality.

@jeep23862 All that you wrote, and I don't see one question in it. Are you sure you actually asked me a valid question? All I see are comments from a grown man who needs a government baby sitter.

Of course you never came up with an answer when someone questioned your last baseless comment. Ayn did not 'humiliate' Barbara Or Nathaniel; Nathaniel probably did humiliate Ayn at some point.

@@sandythomas8911 Ayn used "droit du seigneur" on a couple whose marriage she celebrated. That is humiliating.

It was a bit jumbled, but I think she was essentially saying that the same principles at work in us are at work in other people. So looking at how you relate to something can give you insight on how another person would also relate to it. That's kind of obvious and uncontroversial. The key is to recognize the limits of such principles, which necessitates understanding their total nature as principles.

Are you equating love to altruistic self sacrifice? I can assure you it is not. When I care for my dog it's not that I value the animal more than myself. It's because I value the experience of taking care of another being and the joyful emotions that follow.

Most libertarians I have met have the top priority of making pot legal, even after it is legal.

Second person I’ve seen here that changes the definitions of words just because you don’t like them or agree with them. Reactionary.

Such a deep thinker. Make sure you put your shoes on the right feet.

@@EarthSurferUSA it's still a total cringe, deep thinker.

@@sandythomas8911 Smoking is a "total cringe"? Does that mean you would never listen to an argument if it was made by a person who smokes? Also, don't you find it a bit odd that pot is cool now?

​@@EarthSurferUSA Oh I've Always listened. It's still cringe. Nope I don't find potheads cool either.

You’re the third I’ve seen here that did this. You’re the only one who did try to to redefine feminism but you still buck like a bronco when you hear something you don’t like.

As was stated by the gentleman in the red tie in order to be recognized in the philosophical community she needed to be willing to enter in to discussion and respond to those with opposing view points. She was unwilling to participate in such debates. It's interesting to see a woman (Ayn Rand) who believes in reason over emotion get so emotional when her ideas are challenged or rejected. This is one reason why she is not widely accepted as a philosopher.

MOST philosophers (and most who claim to be philosophers) get VERY emotional when their ideas are challenged or rejected. They respond with “intellectual”-sounding arguments; but you can tell they’re upset and angry that anyone dares to challenge them. Case in point: Jordan Peterson.

Agreed.

Dude, quit the Branden-bashing. 1968 was 50 years ago.

She knew her for WELL OVER 20 years and she she did indeed write her biography, not "attempt to". You jealous old hag.

I would not call an aggrieved woman complaining about her abuser a backstabber.

One of the original ~3,000 Libertarians. Good for you!

You could make your comment without offing an insult. But I am up to it. And for you I have the opportunity to exercise my right to autonomy and privilege to think for myself. Yes, I have read “all her books.” Not to claim any authority but to say that Rand was part of my culture and I embraced it. But I find her remarks about Immanuel Kant as the most evil many in history to be a bit much. She thought that Kant undermined the correspondence theory of truth, which she doesn’t address accept to tell us how we use concepts. Kant gives us an absolute way of knowing what we can know and the limits of reason. He did not make the world unknowable. His antinomies of reason limit knowledge to what we experience so that some questions rational have opposite answers. Therefore, since there is no resolution to the question it is in vein that we ask it. She should have been attacking David Hume who really undermines knowing anything. Rand also thought that money had a nature that somehow if you obeyed that nature you were moral. And you do want to be moral. I did. At least I was that. Then I saw myself. I wasn’t moral because I believed in capitalism. In fact it has a tendency to make me immoral. When I was in college in the 70s I used Rand in a research paper criticizing Karl Popper and my philosopher of science teacher wrote on my paper, “this is abuse not philosophy.” I thought yes (his words) it is. I said that Popper’s Piecemeal social engineering could not account for a state own factor making shoes based on need could not determine how many shoes to make. Only the free market can determine that was my observation based on Rand’s thought. I am no longer a purest because I believe that humans are made humans in community not in isolation based on some rational principle. Altruism is just as much a part of the human genome as psychological egoism How have I understood so little? Because I criticized the great woman? Do you know what she would say, I think? Deal with the argument, not the person. Rand did not seem to be a happy person. I think she thought she didn’t get the attention she deserved. And her personal life with Brandon and O’Conner was dreadful I understand when she died she got some of her money back by using public insurance to deal with her cancer.

***** Yes he did. Just like Rand herself felt insulted on the Donahue show when a woman began by saying when she was young she used to follow Rand’s philosophy but now that she is older…. Rand stopped her and asked to go on to the next question saying she didn’t accept the insult. He said, how can I understand so little? Next, what is her main point? When Howard Roark blows up the complex in the Fountainhead was not that an end justifies the means? (It’s been a long time since I read it.) Because capitalism is the end isn’t that why John Galt withdraws the mind from the American culture? I recall that Rand uses the argument that capitalism helps the poor as one of its justifications. Why? So the poor go hungry that is not my concern? Mine is to exist as the great souled man? But whatever Rand’s capitalism was it is gone forever. Now we have fiat money. Address fiat money and we may talk about the justice and freedom of pure capitalism. But until then money itself is power.

***** So Rand never said that Capitalism benefits the poor? Not as a justification for it but as one of its benefits? I remarked at the time that such a statement coming from Rand seemed altruistic when what she should have said is let them eat cake. You would agree that if we could somehow have a pure capitalism that it would give John Galt the freedom to act on his own rational principles? Anyway, who is stopping him from operating on his own rational principles? It’s the government that is keeping him from producing his great ideas and it’s the government then keeping humanity in chains. Hence he withdraws into his self-made utopia. And the lesson we are taught, how much we need Galt. And all of us should see that it is rationally in our best interest if the producers are free to produce. And of course the invisible hand of the market place will ensure that what is produced is beneficial. And that is reality.

"I love Ayn Rand." You shame her in a public forum over personal issues knowing that there are people who will gloat over her sufferings. I wouldn't do that with people I love. I wouldn't even do it with people I merely like.

***** Is fiat banking capitalism? Making money with money and producing nothing? If you have money should you be able to lend it out at whatever rate brings the biggest returns? Would your capitalism rule out fiat banking? And you are saying that capitalism helps the poor?

*So does libertarianism.*

+John Palermo Feminism relies on a classroom or union mentality where the underachievers can hide in the back and capitalize on the harder, more productive work of others. It's bad enough that that is the growing dynamic of our society but the push of feminism to expedite or want more control to facilitate the transfer of benefits to these people is offensive and should be stopped at all costs before it destroys and enslaves us all.

+blthetube1 You dumb fuck. Did you go to school to get stupid? Feminism, above all, stands for one thing and one thing only. Equal rights for women. Now go back under that rock you live under and stay off the Internet.

tiffsaver I was afraid you where going to say something insightful and make me look foolish. Fortunately you are like the rest of back of the class personality types and confirmed...Once again... That all you have are insults. Thanks, I appreciate the laugh....

+blthetube1 "INSULTS"?? I was being kind. You're a total imbecile. Go away.

I read his sci-fi when I was a teen.

You did not hear what Barbara said.

@Peter: Absolutely right. She was no feminist. All of a sudden some women want to live off of her works. Rand was very much opposed to the feminist movement that appeared on the '60s and said so.

Your definition of feminism is your projected version. You just made that up because that’s how you see it. Very childish of a grown man to contradict a dictionary. Now, if you wanted to say that’s what’s it’s become or was always intended to be that’s another matter but you didn’t do that. You did what a reactionary would do. You didn’t like what you heard so you refused to believe it and made something up.

@@calebcostigan2561 Caleb, just read your words - you do not use facts, just "Jou did not like this version, so you have created your own one". Well this type of replay can be use back on you without any logical problem because to act based on feeling leads to circular "argument". That is what Ms. Rand also rejected :)

Yeah she didn't get what libertarians meant by anarchism. She, like all orthodox objectivists today, conflate anarcho-capitalism, founded on objective ethics and essentially just her political philosophy consistently applied, with generic "anarchism," which includes everything from total nihilistic chaos to totalitarian communism. Can't totally blame her, given her time and the level of information she had access to. I have much less patience for current-day objectivists who simply take whatever she or Peikoff said as gospel and then stop doing any intellectual work of their own. To say that the average ancap is anything like the average ancom simply because of the "an" is to admit you have an utterly naiive understanding of politics.