Objectivist movement
Nathaniel Branden, a young Canadian student who had been greatly inspired by The Fountainhead, became a close confidant and encouraged Rand to expand her philosophy into a formal movement.
Rand described Objectivism as "the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute".
[1] Objectivism's main tenets are: that reality exists independently of consciousness; direct realism, that human beings have direct and inerrant cognitive contact with reality through sense perception; that one can attain objective conceptual knowledge based on perception by using the process of concept formation and inductive logic; rational egoism, that the moral purpose of one's life is the achievement of one's own happiness through productive work; that the only social system consistent with this morality is one that displays full respect for individual rights embodied in laissez-faire capitalism; and that art is "a selective re-creation of reality according to an artist's metaphysical value-judgments."
The Collective originally started out as an informal gathering of friends (many of them related to one another) who met with Rand on weekends at her apartment on East 36th Street in New York City to discuss philosophy.
[10] The first formal presentation of Objectivism began with the Nathaniel Branden Lectures (NBL), shortly after the publication of Rand's final novel, Atlas Shrugged.
[17] She accused Nathaniel Branden of a "gradual departure from the principles of Objectivism",[17] financial exploitation of her related to business loans, and "deliberate deception of several persons".
[21] The Brandens continued for a time to sell some of NBI's recorded lectures through a new company,[22] but otherwise had little involvement with the Objectivist movement until their biographical books about Rand were released.
[24] Throughout the decade, Peikoff continued to offer a number of lecture series on various topics related to Objectivism to large audiences, often incorporating new philosophic material.
[31] Upon Rand's death on March 6, 1982, Peikoff inherited her estate, including the control of the copyrights to her books and writing (barring Anthem, in the public domain).
In 1985, Leonard Peikoff and Ed Snider founded the Ayn Rand Institute (ARI), the first organization devoted to the study and advocacy of Objectivism since the closure of NBI in 1968.
[33] The institute began by sponsoring essay contests on Rand's novels and distributing op-eds analyzing world events from an Objectivist perspective.
Peter Schwartz criticized David Kelley, a philosopher and lecturer then affiliated with ARI, for giving a speech under the auspices of Laissez Faire Books (LFB), a libertarian bookseller.
[39] Subsequently, in an essay appearing in The Intellectual Activist, Peikoff endorsed Schwartz's view and claimed that Kelley's arguments contradicted the fundamental principles of Objectivism.
If you fail fully to grasp and accept the concept, whether your failure is deliberate or otherwise, you eventually drift away from Ayn Rand's orbit, or rewrite her viewpoint or turn openly into her enemy."
[43] Kelley's Institute for Objectivist Studies (IOS) began to publish material on Objectivism and host conferences for Rand scholars in 1990.
[44] IOS invited Nathaniel[45] and Barbara Branden[46] to participate in the institute's activities, effectively bringing them back into the Objectivist movement, and they continued to appear at events for the organization until their deaths in 2014 and 2013, respectively.
In 1994, the Ayn Rand Institute expanded its educational programs into the Objectivist Graduate Center (OGC), which held classes led by Peikoff, Binswanger, and Schwartz.
In addition to Objectivist speakers, mid-east scholars Daniel Pipes, Robert Spencer, and Danish newspaper editor Flemming Rose gave lectures.
[60] In 2016, the Ayn Rand Center Israel launched the Atlas Award for the Best Israeli Start-up, presented annually at the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange.
[78] In 2001, John P. McCaskey founded the Anthem Foundation for Objectivist Scholarship, which sponsors the work of professors affiliated with the Ayn Rand Institute.
Participants included Objectivists Onkar Ghate, Allan Gotthelf, James G. Lennox, Harry Binswanger, and Tara Smith, as well as noted analytic philosophers David Sosa, A. P. Martinich, and Peter Railton.
[90] There are several dozen speakers sponsored by the Ayn Rand Institute[91] and other organizations who give nationwide tours each year speaking about Objectivism.
Prominent among these is John Hospers, Emeritus Professor of Philosophy, University of Southern California, who credited Rand's political ideas as helping to shape his own,[93] while in other areas sharp differences remained.
With growing media coverage, articles began appearing that referred to the "Cult of Ayn Rand" and compared her to various religious leaders.
[97] In 1968, psychologist Albert Ellis, in the wake of a public debate with Nathaniel Branden, published a book arguing that Objectivism was a religion, whose practices included "sexual Puritanism", "absolutism", "damning and condemning", and "deification" of Ayn Rand and her fictional heroes.
[100] Rothbard also wrote that "the guiding spirit of the Randian movement was not individual liberty ... but rather personal power for Ayn Rand and her leading disciples.
Shermer maintained that certain aspects of Objectivist epistemology and ethics promoted cult-like behavior: [A]s soon as a group sets itself up to be the final moral arbiter of other people's actions, especially when its members believe they have discovered absolute standards of right and wrong, it is the beginning of the end of tolerance, and thus reason and rationality.
In 2004, Thomas Szasz wrote in support of Rothbard's 1972 essay,[106] and in 2006, Albert Ellis published an updated edition of his 1968 book that included favorable references to Walker's.
[107] Similarly, Walter Block, while expressing admiration for some of Rand's ideas and noting her strong influence on libertarianism, described the Objectivist movement as "a tiny imploding cult".
[111] Jim Peron responded to Shermer, Rothbard and others with an argument that similarities to cults are superficial at best and charges of cultism directed at Objectivists are ad hominem attacks.
