Ayn Rand: The Russian Radical (23 page)

For Rand, the “spiritual” did not pertain to an otherworldly faculty, but rather to an activity of human consciousness.
Reason
, as “the highest kind of
spiritual activity,” was required “to conquer, control, and create in the material realm” (ibid.). Rand did not limit material activities to purely industrial production. She wished to “show that
any
original rational idea, in any sphere of human activity, is an act of creation and creativeness” (ibid.). This applies equally to the activity of industrialists and artists, businessmen and intellectuals, scientists and philosophers. Each of these spheres is accorded epistemological significance.

By connecting reason and production, thought and activity, theory and practice, Rand intended to uncover the “deeper, philosophical error” upon which these dichotomies were based. As such,
Atlas Shrugged
was designed to
“blast
the separation of man into ‘body’ and ‘soul,’ the opposition of ‘matter’ and ‘spirit.’” Rand rejected the metaphysical dualists who had bifurcated human existence. She proclaimed in her journals that “man is an indivisible entity.”
Mind and body
“can be considered separately only for purposes of discussion, not in actual fact.” In reality, the human individual is an integrated whole.

This vision is central to Galt’s sixty-page speech, which took Rand two years to complete (B. Branden 1986, 266). It abounds with ideas and principles that served as the basis for Rand’s formal philosophical totality. But Rand’s transcendence of dualism is just as obvious in those sections of Galt’s speech which were edited out of the final manuscript. Rand writes:

You had set every part of you to betray every other, you believed that your career bears no relation to your
sex
life, that your politics bear no relation to the choice of your friends, that your values bear no relation to your pleasures, and your heart bears no relation to your brain—you had chopped yourself into pieces which you struggled never to connect—but you see no reason why your life is in ruins and why you’ve lost the desire to live?
⁵⁰

Rand’s revolt against dualism was motivated by a profound desire to exalt a heroic and integrated view of human existence. Even in the sex act, Rand’s characters show a passionate spirituality that is not cut off from intense physical pleasure. In her journals, Rand explained that she wanted to dramatize the
“essential
, unbreakable tie between sex and spirit—which is the tie between body and soul.” The religionists damned human beings for the sins of the flesh, whereas the materialists divorced man’s mind from the functions of his body. Rand proclaimed that her morality of rational selfishness was designed for human life on earth. In her ethos, sex is as much a spiritual celebration as it is a physical one.
⁵¹

Rand projects this mind-body
synthesis
in a fictional representation of the
“ideal man.”
She explains that her chief protagonist, John Galt,
“has no intellectual contradiction and, therefore, no inner conflict.
” He experiences a joy in living that is not determined by pain or fear or guilt.
⁵²
Each of Rand’s heroes reflects this same “worship of joy” to a lesser degree, but all are united by Galt’s oath, one that is similar to the credo enunciated by Equality 7-2521 in
Anthem
. Galt states: “I swear—by my life and my love of it—that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine” (1069).

After years of literary and philosophic integration, Rand published
Atlas Shrugged
in 1957. She credited herself with having created a new, nonreligious morality through an aesthetic medium. She aimed to bridge the gap between
art
and entertainment. She wrote in her journal that traditional morality sees “art” and “entertainment” as polar opposites. Art is supposed to be “serious and dull.” Entertainment is enjoyable, but superficial. No serious work of art, in such a traditional view, could possibly be both entertaining and “true to the deeper essence of life.”
⁵³
Rand rejected this distinction, and presented her novel as an organic totality, a work that fused action, adventure, and sensuality with philosophy, contemplation, and spirituality.

THE PUBLIC PHILOSOPHER

After
Atlas Shrugged
, Rand turned toward a more systematized presentation of her philosophy in essays, books, and lectures. As early as 1958, a year after the publication of the novel, she was planning a book on her philosophy, which she had named
Objectivism
.
⁵⁴
Its subtitle was to be “A Philosophy for Living on Earth.” In her journal, Rand wrote: “The purpose of this book is to make its sub-title redundant.”
⁵⁵
Though Rand never authored such a systematic formal treatise, much the same could be said about the subtitles of her anthologies, particularly
The Virtue of
Selfishness
: A New Concept of
Egoism
,
and
Capitalism
: The Unknown Ideal.
Rand sought to make these books’ subtitles redundant too. She labored for many years as the champion of both “
rational
selfishness” and “laissez-faire capitalism.” Her concept of egoism conjoined the adjective “rational” to the noun “selfishness” in such a way to collapse their distinctions. Human beings are most selfish when they are pursuing their own rationally defined values and interests. Human beings are most rational when their values and interests are self-motivated. Likewise, Rand sought to collapse the distinction between the adjective “laissez-faire” and the noun “capitalism.” Capitalism was an unknown ideal for Rand, because it had yet to be discovered in its purest and
only
legitimate form.

It could be said that for
Rand
, the notion of rational self-interest was
internal
to the concept of egoism; the notion of laissez-faire was
internal
to the concept of a genuinely capitalist social system. She and others explored many of these principles with increasing breadth and depth in such publications as
The Objectivist Newsletter
(1962–65),
The Objectivist
(1966–71), and
The Ayn Rand Letter
(1971–76). Important essays from these periodicals were anthologized in such nonfiction works as
The Virtue of Selfishness
(1964),
Capitalism
: The Unknown Ideal
(1967),
The New Left
: The Anti-Industrial Revolution
(1971),
The
Romantic
Manifesto
(1971),
Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology
(1979), and Rand’s posthumously published works,
Philosophy: Who Needs It
(1982) and
The Voice of Reason
(1989). However, Rand’s first nonfiction work to appear in book form was the lead essay of
For the New Intellectual
, which presented philosophical passages culled from the body of Rand’s fiction. Rand’s harsh and polemical tone, coupled with her caricaturing of many philosophers, led
Sidney Hook
to denounce the book for its sloganeering: “This is the way philosophy is written in the Soviet Union. In a free culture there must always be room for vigorous polemic and controversy but civility of mind is integral to the concept of a civilized society.”
⁵⁶

Despite pinpointing a very real lack of civility in Rand’s exposition, Hook did not realize that Rand’s impulse toward
synthesis
was indeed the way philosophy had been written in Russia for many generations. Rand provoked the wrath of
academicians
partially because, like her Russian philosophical ancestors, she was an outcast, a social critic writing with a passionately immoderate tone that was far more accessible to the general public and far less considerate of scholarly give-and-take.

As her sales increased, so did her impact. She electrified audiences on television and radio, and in newspapers and magazines. With the establishment of the
Nathaniel Branden Institute
(N.B.I.), Rand’s philosophy was mass marketed through the rental of taped courses. Rand made
personal
appearances at Columbia, Princeton, Harvard, Yale, New York University, and other college campuses across the country. On 2 October 1963, she received an honorary degree, Doctor of Humane Letters (L.H.D.), from Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Oregon, in recognition of her growing influence (Gladstein 1984, ii).

But in 1968, the
Objectivist
movement
was torn asunder in a schism between Rand and two of her closest friends and associates, Nathaniel and Barbara Branden. In later years, it became apparent that the schism was inextricably tied to a collapsing love affair between Rand and Nathaniel Branden.
⁵⁷
Even though Rand continued to publish and lecture in the ensuing years, her fractured movement disintegrated under the weight of charges and countercharges. Eventually, Rand’s disillusionment with the state of the world led to her virtual retirement from public life.

Ayn Rand died on 6 March 1982 and was buried in Valhalla, New York.

In the years since her
death
, Objectivist philosophy has emerged as a veritable tradition of thought.

Flowing almost directly from what remained of Rand’s inner circle are the “orthodox” Objectivists, led by Leonard Peikoff. The orthodox school consists of thinkers such as Harry Binswanger,
Edwin Locke
, Edith Packer,
George Reisman
, John Ridpath, and Peter Schwartz, among others.

Leonard Peikoff received his doctorate in philosophy at New York University in 1964 under the direction of
Sidney Hook
. Peikoff’s dissertation was titled “The Status of the Law of Contradiction in Classic Logical Ontologism.”
⁵⁸
His mentor criticized him as a “monist” and a “Hegelian,” but this did not deter Peikoff from his Objectivist predilections.
⁵⁹
Yet like a genuine Hegelian, Peikoff argues that no philosophic problems can be resolved in a vacuum, since all issues are interconnected.
⁶⁰
Admitting to a tendency toward rationalism, Peikoff never tires of quoting
Hegel
’s dictum
that “The True is the Whole.”
⁶¹
He repeats this credo in his books, articles, and courses, warning of the danger of “one-sided distortions” (1983T, lecture 7). His presentation has always been more deductive than inductive, more synthetic than analytic.
⁶²
But in many ways, the Peikoff-Rand link parallels the relationship between Engels and Marx. Like Engels, Peikoff has continued to publish and edit many of his mentor’s previously unavailable writings. He has also made an important contribution to the formalized presentation of Rand’s philosophy in his 1991 book, which derives from both the written and oral tradition of
Objectivism
.

In contrast to the Randian orthodoxy, there are those
neo-Objectivist
thinkers who are generally associated with the
Atlas Society
(formerly the Institute for Objectivist Studies), an organization headed by David Kelley. Kelley’s
Evidence of the Senses
is a realist defense of perception in the Objectivist tradition. Other thinkers who have spoken at Atlas forums or written for its periodicals, include Joan and Allan Blumenthal, Stephen Hicks, the late George Walsh, and the late
Kay Nolte Smith
.

There is also a group of “
libertarian
” neo-Objectivists, consisting of such theorists as Tibor Machan, Eric Mack, Douglas Den Uyl, and Douglas Rasmussen. This group of thinkers relates Rand’s work to the Aristotelian, classical liberal, and modern libertarian traditions.

Finally, one cannot discount the contributions of Nathaniel Branden and Barbara Branden. Despite leaving Rand’s inner circle in 1968, the Brandens have each moved in the direction of “revisionism.”
⁶³
Nathaniel Branden in particular has emerged from his years with Rand as an important theorist and practitioner of “biocentric” psychology. As the so-called father of the self-esteem movement, Branden has emphasized the role of self-esteem in nearly every aspect of human life. His books include
The Psychology of Self-Esteem
(1969),
The Disowned Self
(1971),
The Psychology of Romantic Love
(1980),
Honoring the Self
(1983), and
The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem
(1994). Even though he departs from some of Rand’s formulations, he continues to build on the Objectivist approach.
⁶⁴