One suspects that the actual cause, as in so many different elements of Randian theory, from Rachmaninoff to Victor Hugo to faucet dancing, was that Rand merely appreciated smoking and had the need to cast about for a philosophical system that will make her private whims not solely ethical but additionally a moral obligation incumbent upon everybody who wishes to be rational. If the Rand line was totalitarian, encompassing all of ones life, then, even when all the general premises have been agreed upon and Randians checked with headquarters to see who was In or Out, there was still need to have some “judicial” mechanism to resolve concrete points and to verify that each member toed the road on that query. Rand became the living embodiment of Reason and Reality and by some high quality of persona Rand was in a position to carry about the mind-set in her disciples that their highest value was to earn her approval whereas the gravest sin was to incur her displeasure. Most of the younger men managed to look like carbon copies of Branden, whereas the younger ladies tried to appear to be Barbara Branden, replete with the cigarette-holder held aloft, derived from Ayn Rand herself, that was purported to symbolize the high moral requirements and the mocking contempt wielded by Randian heroines.
Once extra (for it’s effectively to go to the underside of this matter while we’re about it) the trustworthy reality is, that it is the common practice of the human race for women and men to cohabit for other purposes than reproduction, and it has at all times been so, since men and women have been women and men! From all this it follows that the first thing every new husband and spouse ought to do is to settle clearly in their very own minds the problem as to whether or not it is right or mistaken for them to have interaction in coitus for any apart from procreative purposes. There was, for instance, Nathans sister Elaine Kalberman; his brother-in-regulation, Harry Kalberman; his first cousin, Dr. Allan Blumenthal, who assumed the mantle of main Objectivist Psychotherapist after Brandens expulsion; Barbaras first cousin, Leonard Piekoff; and Joan Mitchell, wife of Allan Blumenthal. In the House of Commons, through the fifty-eight years between 1849 and this yr, the Deceased Wife’s Sister Bill was carried by giant majorities nineteen times. Since they had been converted by studying her previous novel, The Fountainhead, which had been published 1943, the top circle was designated in the motion as “the class of ’43.” But there was an unofficial designation that was far more revealing: “the senior collective.” On the surface, this phrase was supposed to “underscore” the excessive individuality of each of the Randian members; in actuality, however, there was an irony inside the irony, because the Randian motion was certainly a “collective” in any genuine which means of the term.
Strengthening the ties inside the senior collective was the fact that every certainly one of them was associated to each other, all being part of 1 Canadian Jewish family, kinfolk of both Nathan or Barbara Branden. If persevering with an intense psychological stress was partially answerable for the extremely high turnover amongst Randian disciples, another reason for this turnover was the very undeniable fact that the movement had a inflexible line on actually every topic, from aesthetics to history to epistemology. If any criticism of Rand or her disciples have been made, or any arguments were pressed that they couldn’t reply, the Randians would undertake a tone of excessive offense: “How dare you say such a factor about her?,” turn on their heels and stomp off. It was universally agreed that Rand was the greatest person of all time. That central axiom was the assertion the “Ayn Rand is the best particular person that has ever lived or ever shall live.” If Ayn Rand is the best person of all time, it follows that she is correct on each query, or on the very least, will way more likely be appropriate at any time than the mere disciple, who grants himself no such all-encompassing greatness.
With the death of NBI, the Randian cultists were cast adrift, for the first time in a decade, to think for themselves. Determined efforts were made to translate Rands mass readership of her greatest-promoting works into faithful disciples who would first subscribe to The Objectivist, and then keep attending NBI taped lectures in their area, thus being inducted into the movement. In the first place it meant that deviation from the right line was all too straightforward: Preferring Bach, for instance, to Rachmaninoff, subjected one to charges of believing in a “malevolent universe.” lf not corrected by self-criticism and psychotherapeutic brainwashing, such deviation may nicely result in ejection from the movement. Secondly, it’s tough to impose a rigid line on each space of life and thought when, as was the case with Rand and her top disciples, they were largely ignorant of those various disciplines. The all-encompassing nature of the Randian line could also be illustrated by an incident that occurred to a buddy of mine who as soon as asked a leading Randian if he disagreed with the movements position on any conceivable subject. Typical of this angle was a meeting of main younger Randians attended by a pal of mine.