For some reason, I often look closely at the people at the top of a heap when I'm trying to decide if the heap is for me. Consequently I familiarized myself with Ayn's treatment of her "hero," Frank O'Connor, while she was married to him and conducting an open affair with Nathaniel Branden, who was married to Barbara Branden. All good objectivists, with the possible exception of Frank, who seemed to me to have a "yeah, OK Ayn, what-ever" embracing of objectivism.
I guess it is easier for Ayn (or anyone; me, even) to write about how other people - or imaginary people - find a utopian existence while rationalizing the harm that is done day-to-day to real people.
I like that term - RANDroids. I never got to the point of associating with any members of the Alice Rosenblum cult. I find it hilarious that for them smoking cigarettes was practically a sacrament.
Frank O'Connor was a handsome bit actor who turned out to have a modest talent for painting and a love of gardening. He was obviously the object of Rand's __projections__of the heroic without embodying them intellectually. He seemed to marry up. He was ordinary. But, Rand overlooked his inability to keep up with her philsophically.
Enter, Nathaniel Branden. He was younger and a blazing intellect. I've read his book, Barbara Branden's book and several others. I'm more or less of the opinion that Branden was mesmerized by Rand's stature as a thinker and then found a niche for himself in promoting her philosophy through a lecture series. It was he who really launched Rand into college age milieu.
According to Rand's philosophy you value and an emotion follows. Rand and Branden got on so well (sympatico philosophically) that the emotions blazed to the surface.
Sidebar: I think Rand really wanted rough sex; she needed to be made to feel. Her heroines were roughed up by the hero in her novels. She seemed to repress emotions and that isn't healthy. Apparently Branden brought out a ___possibility__in her.
She openly discussed what she was feeling and wanting with Frank. Barbara and Frank were bewildered but could not argue philosophically against the sexual union of Branden and Rand without appearing hypocrites. The Virtue of Selfishness is that it brings you what you need by virtue of what your values are. Rand and Branden valued each other intellectually and it was only natural that the physical would follow.
The fly in the ointment was that Branden soon tired of the older women. He continued to use her name and philosophy to build the Institute and create quite a livlihood for himself. He cheated on Rand (by lying about an affair to his wife and to Ayn concerning a younger (prettier!!!) college student who worked for him. What irony! Cheating on an open affair!
When Rand discovered this lie (Barbara ratted him out!) the ethical shit hit the morality fan.
Rand kicked Branden out of her Institute and disassociated herself in every way from him. He moved to California and started a Self-Esteem industry writing bestsellers (industry standards) and establishing a successful practice. He still is active.
Rand felt betrayed, but, didn't falter in her aims to make Objectivism clear to the world.
Her views of Utopia were idealizing mankind and man's efforts. The failure in that is the failure of men to live up to their own ideals. The concept is pretty darned magnificent. A perfect score is only possible; but, not inevitible.
Rand's addiction to cigarettes was fatal. She lived in an era in which magazine ads and tv ads extolled the "benefits" of smoking to help you soothe a sore throat! The irony is tragic. The surgeon general's report was years away from finding revealed secret data to back it up.
Everybody paid the price on that one.
I think the people who are attracted to Rand are people who don't have skills in emotional socializing. They want the world to merely work off of intellectual acumen. That is their error. Life cannot be much without the ecstacy of feeling that accompanies it.
Parroting another person's words is a poor substitute for understanding what they mean. Alas, this seems to happen in religion too.
T.
