ࡱ> }   !"#$%&'()*+,-./0123456789:;<=>?@ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ[\]^_`abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz{|}~Root Entry FŸ]WordDocument kCompObj^ut saying a word, she went out and resumed her reading. Soon she heard them reproaching one another for not cleaning up and negotiating who would be responsible for what. For several weeks, she entered a clean kitchen at dinnertime. I had warned her to be prepared for at least one more "test." But when once again she found the kitchen dirty, she was tempted to overlook it because of their recent efforts. They've been so good, she thought. I had cautioned her that this was the moment at which the experiment would succeed or fail, depending on the consistency of her response. So she summoned all her willpower and went back to her book. That ended the problem. What she had not accomplished with years of words, she accomplished within weeks through her actions. I said to her, "If something doesn't work, don't keep doing it. Pay attention to outcomes. You needed to change your behavior to get them to change theirs. You gave them a strong reason to cooperate with you and do what they had promised to do. The moral of the story is: When you hit a wall, look for new actions to take." "What I finally saw," she remarked, "is that if I was always willing to make up for their defaults, I wasn't really giving them any persuasive reason to change. When I gave them a reality that required that they do what they had agreed to do surprise, surprise their actions changed." This story has implications for child-rearing and for society at large. Encouraging Self-Responsibility in Young People An attitude of self-responsibility is most likely to flourish where there is good, basic self-esteem. When parents and teachers convey their belief in a young person's competence and worth, they are laying the best possible groundwork not only for the emergence of self-esteem but also for self-responsibility and independence. What we want to discuss here are two simple ideas: Young people are most likely to learn self-responsibility from adults who personally exemplify it in their behavior. Young people are most likely to learn self-responsibility if their parents and teachers require it. In other words, if adults model self-responsibility and convey their belief that young people are capable of operating self-responsibly and are expected to do so, and if adults deal with them a consistently from this perspective, the probability is that young people will respond positively and grow into self-responsibility. Children are unlikely to learn self-responsibility from adults who are passive, self-pitying, prone to blaming and alibis, and who invariably explain their life circumstances on the basis of someone else's actions or on "the system." Such adults do not teach self-responsibility, and if they do pay lip service to it, they are probably not convincing. If, however, children grow up in a home or are educated in a school system among adults who hold themselves accountable for what they do, are honest about acknowledging their mistakes, carry their own weight in relationships, and work for what they want in life, there is a good probability, although never an absolute guarantee, that this behavior will be perceived as normal and as what is appropriate to a human being. Occasionally, a child is so appalled by the passivity and immaturity of one or both parents that in reaction the child learns self-responsibility very early. But this is not the most likely outcome and in any event is a hard way to learn. Apart from exemplifying self-responsibility themselves, the greatest contribution adults can make is to convey to young people that self-responsibility is what is expected and required. Here are examples of what this policy might mean in action: A boy makes so much noise at the dinner table that no else is able to enjoy the meal. Mother says, "You have a choice. You can eat by yourself in the kitchen, or you can hold the noise level down when we're eating. You decide." When the boy continues with his uproar, Mother says, "I see you've decided to eat by yourself" and separates him from the family dܥe# k|,jl,jljj j G(jjjTj@}=8GTimes New Roman Symbol ArialTimes New RomanA Culture of Accountability by Nathaniel Branden, Ph.D. (NathanielBranden@compuserve.com) Copyright 1996, Nathaniel Branden, All Rights Reserved "A culture of accountability" is the last chapter of Dr. Branden's recent book, Taking Responsibility: Self-Reliance and the Accountable Life. In the previous chapters, Dr. Branden demonstrates how personal responsibility is at the core of successful living. He defines what it means for individuals to "take responsibility for themselves" and explains why taking responsibility for oneself is necessary for personal power and happiness. In this chapter, Dr. Branden describes the cultural and political implications of the previous chapters. Ultimately, an attitude of self-responsibility must be generated from within the individual. It cannot be "given" from the outside, just as self-esteem cannot. And yet we can appreciate that there are social environments in which people are more likely to learn self-responsibility and environments in which they are less likely. There are social philosophies and policies that encourage independence, and there are others that encourage dependence. The average person is not so autonomous that he or she will generate the appropriate attitudes in a culture that is rewarding the opposite. So let us shift our examination of self-responsibility from the "inside" to the "outside" from the individual to the human environment in which he or she lives and acts. I will begin with a story. One of the pleasures in being a psychotherapist is the opportunity to experiment with mildly mischievous solutions to clients' difficulties. Here is an incident taken from my clinical practice. Nadine R. was a thirty-eight-year-old mother and office manager who worked on personal problems with me via the telephone. (I do a good deal of psychotherapy on the telephone with clients who call from other cities.) My office is in Los Angeles, and her home is in Minneapolis. This afternoon she sounded desperate. "God, I wish you were a woman today!" were her first words. "I don't know if a man will have sympathy for this problem." She presented the following dilemma. Her husband was a research scientist who had his own laboratory; she ran his office in addition to running their home and raising their two teenage boys. She made only one request of them: When she entered her kitchen to make dinner, she wanted to find the garbage pail empty and all dirty dishes in the dishwasher. Her husband and sons agreed to take turns discharging this responsibility but rarely followed through. Before she began to cook, she usually had to clean up the kitchen, which she resented. The men in her family agreed that she was absolutely right, only nothing ever changed. "I've reasoned with them," Nadine said, "I've pleaded, I've screamed, I've begged nothing works. I feel utterly ineffectual. What should I do?" "Are you absolutely committed to getting a change?" I asked. "I'd do anything," she declared. "Good. I think you can help these gentlemen to keep their promises if you'll do exactly as I say. We're going to conduct an experiment." Next evening, when she found the kitchen dirty, she walked into the living room and began reading a book. When her puzzled husband and sons inquired about dinner, she answered, smiling pleasantly, "I don't cook in a dirty kitchen." (I had told her, "No reproaches and no explanations.") The men exchanged disoriented looks and disappeared into the kitchen. A few minutes later, when they informed her it was now spotless, she proceeded cheerfully to prepare their dinner. The next night the kitchen was clean when she first entered it. The night after that, the garbage pail was full again and there were dirty dishes on the counter. (I had told her this was likely.) Withoinner table. Later, when he agrees to eat in a more acceptable manner, Mother says, "I'm glad you've decided to eat with us. We've missed you." She is helping her son to understand that he has choices and that actions have consequences, and that he is cared for. Note that she does so without lectures, insults, ridicule, or abuse; she speaks with respect for his dignity. A high school girl asks permission to use the family car. Permission is given on the understanding that she must always return the car with a full tank of gas; this is discussed explicitly between her and her father. Three times in a row she fails to fill the tank as promised. He with draws driving privileges for a month, saying, "I see you've decided not to use the car for a while. I will respect your decision." When he overhears her telling a girlfriend, "My parents won't let me have the car 'cause I didn't deliver on my promise to bring it home with a full tank" he later tells her, "Thank you for the honesty of your explanation to your friend. I appreciate your taking responsibility for your actions." This simple acknowledgment is worth more than any sermon on morality. A teenage boy who is hardworking and an A-student announces his intention to take a year off, after finishing high school, to travel. His father asks, "What are your plans for financing this adventure?" His son speaks of the money he has been saving and of the work he plans to do this coming summer to earn additional money. His father says, "I appreciate your strong sense of purpose. Tell you what I'll do I'll match any amount of money you are able to get together by the time you're ready to go." He is not afraid to offer help to a boy who shows such self-motivation and independence. A daughter in her twenties, with a long record of acting irresponsibly and counting on her parents to bail her out, has been cautioned by her mother that she is now on her own and that her family may no longer be regarded as a financial resource. Just the same, the daughter phones and in a panicky voice announces that she has only two months' rent left and does not know what to do. "This is a real challenge for you," her mother says pleasantly. The daughter says, "My boss let me go just because I was late to work a few times last month." Her mother says, "Uh-huh." The daughter wails, "What will I do?" Her mother answers, "I really don't know." Disoriented because the old maneuvers aren't working, the daughter persists, "Soon I'll be out of money!" "This sounds like a real tough problem," her mother answers. "My boss is a real stinker," the daughter announces. Her mother inquires, "You mean, because he needed you at work on time?" "Mother!" the daughter shrieks, "What am going to do?" The mother responds benevolently, "I have absolute confidence in your ability to find a solution. I've been remiss in the past by bailing you out and not helping you develop your inner strength. Is there anything else, dear? I really need to be going now." The mother knows that by always rescuing her daughter in the past, she had given her grounds to believe she did not have to take responsibility for her own life. Now it is time to provide the education she regretted not providing years earlier. She knows that her daughter is not stupid and not infirm and is not going to die: She will find a way to survive and may become stronger in the process. Is success guaranteed? It cannot be. But in these circumstances her greatest gift to her daughter is to go "on strike." I have counseled many parents to this policy, and more often than not in later years their children acknowledged the wisdom of what was done. And I have seen children destroyed by parents who refused to stop being "helpful." In nature, if we behave irresponsibly we suffer the consequences not because nature is "punishing" us but because of simple cause and effect. If we do not plant food, we do not reap a harvest. If we are careless about fire, we destroy our property. If we build a raft without securing the logs properly, the raft comes apart in the water and we may lose our belongings or drown. None of this happens because reality is angry with us. If reality could speak, it might say, "It's nothing personal." Parents who wish to encourage self-responsibility teach consequences, teach cause and effect. We don't want to eat with you if you make the experience unpleasant for us. We won't lend you the car if you keep returning it with an empty tank. If you show evidence of self-responsibility, we'll be inspired to assist you in your goals. If we see you repeatedly living unthinkingly, we refuse to go on being a rescuer we refuse to care more about your life than you do. If you want dinner, honor your promise to keep the kitchen clean I don't cook in a dirty kitchen. In this way, we can teach natural consequences, not artificial punishments. If other people are not willing to make up the deficit, no one would imagine he or she could get away with living irresponsibly. Reality would very quickly correct any such delusion. It is the intervention of others that allows some people to believe that theirs is to wish while it is the job of others to provide, theirs to dream while others must act, theirs to suffer while others must produce solutions, theirs to feel while others must think. Unfortunately, we often see people working to make up for others' defaults, while wondering bitterly why those others aren't practicing self-responsibility. Yet are not those others daily given evidence that they can get away with their passivity and manipulative helplessness? If there is one truth that psychologists of the most divergent views agree on, it is that if you wish to encourage a particular pattern of behavior, you do not reward its opposite. This brings us to the subject of culture, political philosophy, and social policy. Responsibility and Community The traditional American values of individualism, self-reliance, self-discipline, and hard work had their roots, in part, in the fact that this country began as a frontier nation where everything had to be created. To be sure, most Americans exhibited a strong sense of community, and they certainly practiced mutual aid. But this was not seen as a substitute for self-responsibility. Independent people helped one another when they could, but everyone was expected to carry his or her own weight. People were not encouraged to believe they enjoyed special "entitlements." The Declaration of Independence proclaimed the revolutionary idea that a human being had a right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. This meant not that he or she was owed anything by others, but rather that others including the government were to respect the individual's freedom and the inviolability of his or her person. It is only by the use of force or fraud (which is an indirect form of force) that human rights can be infringed on, and it was force and fraud that were, in principle, barred from human relationships. This rejection of the initiation of force in human relationships was the translation into political and social reality of the eighteenth-century precept of natural rights that is, rights held by individuals not as a gift from the state but rather by virtue of being human. This idea was one of the great achievements of the Enlightenment. The principle of inalienable rights was never adhered to with perfect consistency. The U.S. government claimed the privilege of certain exceptions from the very beginning. And yet the principle remained the guiding vision of the American system. For a very long time, it was what America stood for: Freedom. Individualism. Private property. The right to the pursuit of happiness. Self-ownership. The individual as an end in him- or herself, not a means to the ends of others, and not the property of family or church or state or society. Lord Acton observed, "Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end." This idea is what America was perceived to stand for and embody. The United States was the first country in the history of the world to be consciously created out of an idea and the idea was liberty. Observe that the inalienable rights on which this system was based were negative rights in that they were not claims on anyone else's energy or production. In effect, they merely proclaimed "Hands off." They made no demands on others except to abstain from coercion. I may not impose my wishes or ideas on you by force, and you may not impose yours on me. Human dealings are to be voluntary. We are to deal with one another by means of persuasion. In the arena of political economy, the name given to this system in its purest, most consistent form was laissez-faire capitalism. But this is merely a synonym for freedom. Capitalism is what happens when freedom of choice and action is recognized and protected by a government. In the nineteenth-century United States of America, with the development of a free-market society, people saw the sudden release of productive energy that had previously had no outlet. They saw life made possible for countless millions who had little chance for survival in pre-capitalist economies. They saw mortality rates fall and population growth rates explode upward. They saw machines the machines that many of them had cursed, opposed, and tried to destroy cut their workday in half while multiplying incalculably the value and reward of their effort. They saw themselves lifted to a standard of living no feudal baron could have conceived. With the rapid development of science, technology, and industry, they saw, for the first time in history, the liberated mind taking control of material existence. In this country during the nineteenth century, productive activities were predominantly left free of government regulations, controls, and restrictions. True enough, there was always some government intervention into economic activities, and some business people who sought government favors to provide them with advantages against competitors that would have been impossible in a totally free market. (Business people have often been anything but enthusiasts for true laissez-faire.) And there were other injustices reflecting inconsistency in protecting individual rights: the toleration of slavery (until the Civil War) and legal discrimination against women. But in the brief period of a century and a half, the United States created a level of freedom, of progress, of achievement, of wealth, and of physical comfort unmatched and unequaled by the total sum of mankind's development up to that time. To the extent that various other countries adopted capitalism, the rule of brute force vanished from people's lives. Capitalism abolished slavery and serfdom in all the civilized nations. "Western technology made slavery unnecessary; Western ideas made it intolerable," observes historian Bernard Lewis [1]. Trade, not violence, became the ruling principle of human relationships. Intellectual and economic freedom rose and flourished together. A system in which wealth and position were inherited or acquired by physical conquest or political favor was replaced by one in which rewards had to be earned by productive work. By closing the doors to force, capitalism threw them open to achievement. Rewards were tied to production, not to extortion; to ability, not to brutality; to the capacity for furthering life, not to that for inflicting death. For the first time in history, intelligence and enterprise had a broad social outlet they had a market. Much has been written about the harsh conditions of life during the early years of capitalism. When one considers the level of material existence from which capitalism raised people and the comparatively meager amount of wealth in the world when the Industrial Revolution began, what is startling is not the slowness with which capitalism liberated men and women from poverty, but the speed with which it did so [2]. Once individuals were free to act, ingenuity and inventiveness proceeded to raise the standard of living to heights that a century earlier would have been judged fantastic. But there was a price. A free society does not imagine that it can abolish all risk and uncertainty from human existence. It provides a context in which men and women can act, but it does not and cannot guarantee the results of any individual's efforts. What it asks of people is self-responsibility. The desire for security is entirely reasonable if it is understood to mean the security achieved through the legal protection of one's rights and through one's own savings, long-range planning, and the like. But life is an intrinsically risky business, and uncertainty is inherent in our existence. No security can ever be absolute. This is accepted more readily if you have a decent level of self-esteem that is, if you have fundamental confidence in your ability to cope with life's challenges. But to the extent that self-esteem is lacking, then the self-responsibility that a free society requires can be terrifying. Instead, we may long for a guaranteed, Garden of Eden existence in which all our needs are met by others. We can observe this attitude in the two main camps that opposed a free-market society in the nineteenth century: the medievalists and the socialists. Longing for some version of a resurrected feudal order, the medievalists dreamed of abolishing the Industrial Revolution. They found spiritually repugnant the disintegration of feudal aristocracy, the sudden appearance of fortune makers from backgrounds of poverty and obscurity, the emphasis on merit and productive ability, and above all the pursuit of profit. They longed for a return to a status society. "Commerce or business of any kind," wrote John Ruskin, "may be the invention of the devil." The socialists wished not to abolish the Industrial Revolution but to take it over to retain the effects, material prosperity, while eliminating the cause, political and economic freedom. They cursed the "cold impersonality" of the marketplace and the "cruelty" of the law of supply and demand, and above all they cursed the pursuit of profit. They proposed to substitute the benevolence of a commissar. In the writings of both, one can distinguish the longing for a society in which everyone's existence is automatically guaranteed that is, in which no one bears responsibility for his or her existence and well-being. Both camps characterized their ideal society by freedom from rapid change or challenge, or from the exacting demands of competition. It was a society in which each must do his or her prescribed part to contribute to the well-being of the whole, but in which no one faced the necessity of making choices that crucially affected his or her life and future. It was a society in which the question of what you earned or did not earn did not come up, in which rewards were not related to achievement, and in which someone's benevolence assured that you never had to bear responsibility for the consequences of your errors. The sin of capitalism, in the eyes of its critics, was that it did not deliver this protection. While capitalism offered spectacular improvements in the standard of living and undreamed-of opportunities for the ambitious and adventuresome, it did not offer relief from self-responsibility. It counted on it. It was a system geared to individuals who trusted themselves trusted their minds and judgment and who believed that the pursuit of achievement and happiness was their birthright. It was a system geared to self-esteem. In the earlier years of our history, when people spoke of rights they meant either the natural rights described above or their derivatives, as spelled out in the Constitution and Bill of Rights. Or they meant contractually acquired rights, such as the right to take possession of a piece of property you have purchased. In the first two instances, the primary focus was on protecting the individual citizen against the government. Insofar as these rights pertained to relationships in the private sector, the sole obligation of people was to abstain from using force or fraud in their interactions with others. In the case of contractually acquired rights, the sole obligation was to honor your agreements and commitments. No great drain on the public treasury was required to secure such rights nothing remotely approaching a third or half of one's income. The cost of a government performing this function was marginal. But in the twentieth century, a new notion of rights became fashionable that negated the earlier ones. Ironically, it was the very success of the American system that made this development possible. As our society became wealthier, it began to be argued that people were "entitled" to all sorts of things that would have been unthinkable earlier. Eighty years ago, few would have suggested that everyone had a "right" to "adequate housing" or "the best available health care." It was understood that housing and health care were economic goods and, like all economic goods, had to be produced by someone. They were not free gifts of nature and did not exist in unlimited supply. Now, however, at the sight of our growing prosperity, intellectuals and politicians credited not freedom but the government with the new wealth. And they began to declare that government could do more than merely guarantee the protection of rights and establish a more or less level playing field, which was the original American idea but which now seemed too modest a goal. Government could become an agency for achieving any social goal thought to be desirable. In the growing enthusiasm for government regulation, planning, and expanded "services," especially since the nineteen-thirties, it was not a long step from "it would be desirable" to "people are entitled." Desires thus became rights. For example if a man wanted to be a farmer, then under the philosophy of Roosevelt's New Deal the fact that his farm could not support itself need not be an impediment: Agricultural subsidies could make his desire attainable. Of course, to correct the "mistakes" of free-market capitalism, political coercion became necessary. For wealth to be "redistributed," first it must be created and then it must be expropriated. Citizens' taxes paid the farm subsidies. These subsidies had the effect of driving up the cost of farm products, for which again citizens paid. Their rights were expendable. Whenever artificial "rights" are enforced by a government, genuine rights inevitably are sacrificed. To quote novelist-philosopher Ayn Rand in her essay on "Man's Rights" in The Virtue of Selfishness: Observe ... the intellectual precision of the Founding Fathers: they spoke of the right to the pursuit of happiness not of the right to happiness. It means that a man has the right to take the actions he deems necessary to achieve his happiness; it does not mean that others must make him happy. The right to life means that a man has the right to support his life by his own work ... it does not mean that others must provide him with the necessities of life. The right to property means that a man has the right to take the economic actions necessary to earn property, to use it, and dispose of it; it does not mean that others must provide him with property. The right of free speech means that a man has the right to express his ideas without danger of suppression, interference or punitive action by the government. It does not mean that others must provide him with a lecture hall, a radio station or a printing press through which to express his ideas. Any undertaking that involves more than one man, requires the voluntary consent of every participant, but none has the right to force his decision on others. Under pure capitalism that is, a system based on the inviolability of individual rights a farm that could not maintain itself in a free market could not remain in existence. Under an increasingly "mixed economy," the impossible became possible by transferring to others the burden of one's failures, which the government alone had the power to enforce. This particular program was introduced by a Democrat, but for a very long time it was hard to find a Republican politician notwithstanding all the free-enterprise rhetoric who would dare challenge the sacred cow of farm subsidies (or some other form of financial aid), since so many of these farmers are Republicans. As this is being written (February 1995) our agricultural policy is at last being called into question by some members of the new Republican majority, but the outcome cannot yet be predicted. Chances of a radical change seem unlikely. This is not an essay on political economy, and I shall not attempt to retrace the steps by which this country moved from something close to laissez-faire to the extravagantly regulated system we have today. Nor will I attempt to address the many issues that would be essential if I were to attempt to argue for the libertarian vision of the good society. The defining principle of libertarianism is the abolition of the initiation of physical coercion from human relationships. (I say "initiation" because of course force may be justified in self-defense.) Libertarians advocate freedom of production and trade, freedom (to quote Robert Nozick) of capitalist acts between consenting adults. And on this subject, there is ample evidence available to anyone who is willing to do the homework that, apart from any question of its morality, government regulation of our economic activities does not work. As Peter Drucker observes in The New Realities, "The Chicago economist George J. Stigler (winner of the 1982 Nobel Prize in Economics) has shown in years of painstaking research that not one of the regulations through which the U.S. government has tried over the years to control, direct, or regulate the economy has succeeded. They were either ineffectual or they produced the opposite of the intended results." There are reasons for this, among them that the immoral is not practical, but that is outside the scope of this discussion. Here, we want to focus not on the mixed economy, but on the role the government has played in undermining respect for self-responsibility in our society and in creating a nation of dependents who can no longer imagine a life without government support, involvement, and regulation. Under a mixed economy, government intervention can take many forms, from restricting the freedom of producers in the name of protecting consumers, to granting some business group monopolistic powers that shield it from competitors, to special subsidies given to a privileged sector claiming to have unique needs, to the welfare programs that have been sweeping the country since the sixties in a protracted assault on the practice of self-responsibility in the name of compassion. But the essential pattern is always the same: the violation of the rights of some (or all) individuals in the name of allegedly serving the interests of a particular group. I say "allegedly" because the welfare programs were intended to solve problems that have gotten steadily worse since the legislation was enacted. This is made devastatingly clear in such powerful critiques of our welfare system as Charles Murray's Losing Ground. The world of government operates very differently from the world of business. In business, when millions of dollars are poured into a project that does not deliver on any of the promises of its advocates, the project is typically dropped and the judgment of its advocates is reassessed. Not having unlimited resources, business is obliged to pay attention to outcome. Failure is a signal to go back to the drawing board. In the world of welfare, entitlement programs, and "social engineering" overseen by bureaucrats with the business acumen of social workers, outcome is less important than intentions. Never mind that crime is a national forest fire raging out of control and that actual crime statistics are demonstrably higher than official government figures [3]. Never mind that the underclass is expanding, not diminishing. Never mind that the most important economic gains made by African Americans all took place before President Lyndon Johnson's civil rights legislation, that many black leaders are now saying that the situation has worsened since, that government policies and programs have encouraged millions of people to think of themselves as helpless children for whom dependence on the state is a necessity. Never mind that our "humanitarian" tax laws and welfare system play a major role in the breakup of black families by financially penalizing a family that remains intact and rewarding one in which the husband departs. (The absence of a male figure in the household has been tied to young people's disposition to crime, teenage pregnancy, and drug addiction.) Never mind that the people the programs are designed to help are falling farther and farther behind. Never mind that our welfare/entitlement programs have created a nation of dependents and are threatening to bankrupt us. If our motive is compassion for the unfortunate, it seems we do not have to be concerned with whose rights are sacrificed to pay for it nor what kind of personal and social outcomes we produce. The message of our welfare system is that we are not responsible for our lives and well-being. The message of our legal system is that we are not responsible for our actions. (Has getting away with murder ever been easier in a civilized society?) The message of our political leaders throughout most of this century is that if they are elected, ways can always be found to transfer the burden of our needs and our mistakes to someone else. With regard to this last, it is the essence of a mixed economy. Such a system means government by pressure groups, a state of affairs in which various gangs ("special interests") compete for control of the machinery of government to win legislation providing them with the particular favors or protections they seek, always justified, needless to say, by ritualistic references to "the common good." The Founding Fathers were keenly aware of this danger. In the Federalist Papers, No. 10, James Madison warned of the threat represented by special-interest groups when democracies are not limited by individual rights. Special-interest groups prevail, he cautioned, because the benefits they receive from the government are concentrated, while the costs they impose on the taxpayers are diffuse. Our government has poured into regulatory agencies, welfare programs, and every imaginable kind of statist intervention into the lives of citizens trillions of dollars that in private hands could have been put to productive use. What we have to show for it is a society characterized by: Increasing polarization between every kind of social faction Massive, inarticulate rage and suspiciousness of anyone who does not share our opinions Widespread cynicism Escalating violence and crime of unprecedented magnitude Escalating conflict between the young and the elderly (provoked by our social security program among other things) Increasing conflict among various ethnic groups An underclass that keeps growing and growing, nurtured by intellectuals who advocate more of the poison that is killing them the politics of victimology and entitlement A general deterioration in the quality of life Government is not the sole cause of these problems, although its contribution has been enormous. A fact avoided by our political world is that all the social evils government intervention was supposed to ameliorate have grown steadily worse in direct proportion to the degree of the intervention. Am I suggesting that no social group has improved its circumstances over the past half-dozen decades? Of course not. What I am saying is that government efforts were not responsible, despite the self-congratulatory propaganda to the contrary. During the eighties, for example, women enjoyed historically unprecedented gains in wages, in entry into such traditionally male professions as business, law, and medicine, and in education. According to studies by three women economists reported in the New York Times by business writer Sylvia Nasar, in that one decade women made almost as much progress as in the preceding ninety years. Ms. Nasar writes: "Far from losing ground, women gained more in the 1980s than in the entire postwar era before that. And almost as much as between 1890 and 1980." This was principally due to economic forces that drew more and more women into the marketplace, and also to shifts in our values regarding women's role in the world. In other words, these gains were in the voluntary domain, not the coercive (political) domain. West Indian blacks in the United States, who come from a background of intact families, respect for hard work, and an ethic of self-responsibility, have not typically looked to the government for special forms of political protection and favoritism. They take any work available, often beginning on the lowest levels, just to get started in the economy; they may begin on low levels, but they do not remain there. They rise as fast or faster than many whites. "Second-generation West Indians have higher incomes than whites," reports economist Thomas Sowell in his illuminating study, Ethnic America. Furthermore, he writes, "As of 1969 ... [w]hile native blacks had an unemployment rate above the national average, West Indian blacks had an unemployment rate beneath the national average." They are a walking refutation of standard explanations of poverty among blacks primarily in terms of racial discrimination. They sometimes look with quiet scorn on those African Americans for whom their victimhood, helplessness, and necessary dependency are axioms, and who regard low-paying, menial jobs as beneath their dignity but do not regard welfare as beneath it. (It should also be said that there are many African Americans who share the West Indian perspective.) Both groups are black, but the difference in how far and how fast they rise is an issue of differences in their culture and values. A mind-set of self-responsibility is not a peripheral but a central issue here. In the same book quoted above, Sowell describes the striking social and economic gains that native African Americans have made during this century, which have far more to do with individual initiative than with any government assistance. Then he goes on to observe: Along with general progress, blacks have experienced retrogression in particular areas. The proportion of one-parent, female-headed black families increased from 18 percent in 1950 to 33 percent in 1973 from double the white percentage in 1950 to more than triple the white percentage in 1973. Despite attempts to depict this as a "legacy of slavery," one-parent, female-headed black families were a rare phenomenon in earlier times, even under slavery. The proportion of blacks on welfare also rose during the 1960s and 1970s, as the proportion in poverty declined. The proportion of the black population that is working has been declining both absolutely and relative to whites. Unemployment among blacks has risen, also absolutely and relative to whites. Black teenage unemployment in 1978 was more than five times what it had been their years earlier. Among the factors responsible, a number of government programs notably the minimum wage laws have made it more difficult for blacks to find jobs, and other government programs notably welfare have made it less necessary. I am aware that the social issues I touch on in this section are complex, many-faceted, and difficult to address briefly. I am also aware that my particular perspective is radical. It does not challenge "welfare as we know it" (almost everyone agrees our present system is a mess). It does not advocate reform. It challenges the underlying principle of welfare itself. By this I mean the doctrine that some people have an unearned claim on the mind, energy, and effort of others who have no choice in the matter. This doctrine treats people not as ends in themselves but as means to the ends of others, and asserts the moral right to do so. No, I am not advocating the termination of all welfare programs overnight. They need to be phased out over time and with other political corrections to minimize the stress of transition to a truly free society. That, at any rate, is what I would be arguing were this a book about political philosophy rather than a book about self-responsibility. Here, I can only hint at the libertarian perspective, with no time or space to clarify and amplify it, let alone answer the dozens of challenging questions that a reasonable person could be expected to raise. My purpose in doing so is to drive home the idea that whatever merits we ascribe to our present system, we cannot maintain that that system supports independence or self-reliance. Many of us have talked to young, unwed mothers (white and black) whose attitude is "Why shouldn't I have another child? The government will take care of us." We have talked to men and women (white and black) who say "Why should I struggle to get a job when I can get a government check?" Who taught them to think this way [4]? As to those who are genuinely in trouble and not merely cashing in on the philosophy of entitlement, do I believe it a proper human goal to alleviate suffering and offer a helping hand? Of course. How can one not? There are, however, many things I am in favor of that I do not see as proper functions of a government. Charity is one of them. The question is not whether one believes in benevolence and mutual aid. The question is whether one thinks' in terms of voluntary choice or governmental coercion. Kindness is a virtue, to be sure. But it is not grounds for sacrificing individual rights. Nothing is. And it is one of the many intellectual ironies and disgraces of our age that those who protest coercion are called "cruel" and "reactionary" while those who embrace it are called "compassionate" and "progressive." There is nothing compassionate or progressive about imposing one's values on others at the point of a gun. And that, ultimately, is what we are talking about, however it is rationalized and dressed up to sound "liberal" and "enlightened." The ideal of self-responsibility in no way forbids us to help one another, within limits, in times of need. As noted earlier, Americans have a long tradition of doing this. We are the most charitable people in the world. This is not a contradiction but a natural result of the fact that ours is the first and still the only country in history to proclaim the right to selfishness in "the pursuit of happiness." The happiness the Declaration of Independence refers to is our own. In proclaiming and defending our right to pursue our own self-interest, to live for our own sake, the American system released the innate generosity in everyone (when they are not treated as objects of sacrifice). It is interesting to observe that during the eighties, the so-called "decade of greed," Americans gave more than twice the amount to charity that they had given in the previous decade, in spite of changes in the tax laws that made giving less advantageous. Our private, not-for-profit organizations the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, the Salvation Army, churches, not-for-profit hospitals, and philanthropic agencies of every conceivable kind perform benevolent work far more extensive than in any other country. In Europe, if such services exist, they are part of the political, coercive apparatus rather than the private, voluntary realm. Alexis de Tocqueville observed in 1831 that our voluntary spirit is what makes us different from Europeans. Americans have a long and impressive record of developing private and noncoercive solutions to social needs, and we must cultivate and build on this tradition [5]. What needs to be challenged in our country today is not the desirability of helping people in difficulty (intelligently and without self-sacrifice), but rather the belief that it is permissible to abrogate individual rights to achieve our social goals. We must stop looking for some new use of force every time we encounter something that upsets us or arouses our pity. As a first step toward a freer society, by stimulating new thinking about the best ways to solve social problems, here is one concrete suggestion. Let us bring the paying-attention-to-outcomes philosophy of the business world to our legislative practices. First, every piece of legislation and every government agency must spell out what it aims to accomplish and in what time frame. Next, it must be monitored periodically, and the public must be informed concerning its progress, or lack of progress, toward its goal. When the time set for the accomplishment of specific goals is up, the legislation or agency must go on trial for its life just as in business. It must not be allowed to remain in force merely because it exists. It must demonstrate results, and if it has failed in what it promised to deliver, it should be abolished. This policy alone will not lead us to a fully free society, and you do not have to be an unreserved advocate of laissez-faire to appreciate its merits. What it will do is raise public consciousness concerning the workings of our present system and perhaps introduce some element of accountability. As matters stand now, once a political institution is in place, it is notoriously difficult to get rid of, even when almost everyone agrees it is a disaster. We heard a great deal about the need for "a greater sense of community." Government by pressure group inevitably polarizes; it is the antagonist of community. When people are fighting one another for the privilege of imposing their particular agenda by law, is it surprising that their stance to others is adversarial? Government by pressure group places farmers against city dwellers, the young against the elderly, women against men, the less intelligent against the more intelligent, the subsidized or protected industries against the unsubsidized or unprotected, consumers against producers, and the poor against everyone. When people are fighting for special legal protection and privilege because "I'm more of a victim than you'll ever be," when no one is responsible for anything, and problems are always someone else's fault, is it reasonable to expect a flourishing of brotherly and sisterly love? Clearly not. This is why I stress that individualism and self-responsibility are the necessary foundation for true community. If we are free of each other, we can approach each other with goodwill. We do not have to be afraid. We do not have to view each other as potential objects of sacrifice, nor view ourselves as potential meals on someone else's plate. If we live in a culture that upholds the principle that we are responsible for our actions and the fulfillment of our desires, and if coercion is not an option in the furtherance of our aims, then we have the best possible context for the triumph of community, benevolence, and mutual esteem. Are there now and will there continue to be severe social problems challenging our resourcefulness, inventiveness, and ingenuity? Yes. Will other people sometimes make value choices we can neither agree with nor admire? Inevitably. That is the nature of life. But a culture of self-responsibility is not the best chance we have to create a decent world. It is the only chance. There are many reasons why people have difficulty even thinking about the possibility of the kind of society I am projecting. Social metaphysics is one of these reasons. I am propounding an idea totally outside the mainstream of "received wisdom." There are no famous "authorities" to sanction it. There is no widely esteemed group in our culture with which such an idea is identified. It is certainly not "conservatism." It has nothing to support it except I am convinced objective reality. Let me give an example that might help to make my perspective clearer. Imagine if since the start of this country we believed that it was a function of government to provide citizens with shoes, since no one could hope to have a decent life without shoes. Now imagine that in the nineteen-nineties a radical (meaning, in this context, consistent) advocate of laissez- faire capitalism were to suggest that shoes should be treated like any other economic good that is, should be manufactured and sold on the free market without governmental involvement. "Are you crazy?" most people might say. "Do you want to see the poor going around shoeless? Have you no compassion?" And yet in our country people do not walk around shoeless, and the shoe industry has done an admirable job of making shoes available to the general public at reasonable prices. To be sure, there are shoes that sell for under ten dollars and others that sell for over eight hundred dollars, but I do not know that anyone sees this as a great problem requiring government regulation of the shoe industry. However, in my imaginary scenario, it might take a great leap of intellectual independence for a person to grasp how a privatized shoe industry would operate, especially with every influential authority condemning the idea as "barbaric," "retrogressive," and "inhumane." Today, only a handful of people can grasp how a society based consistently on the principle of individual rights might operate, or to project how men and women voluntarily and on their own initiative might develop means to cope with the unsolved problems of our society. It will be a major step forward when more people are willing and able even to think about such a possibility. Individualism The idea of individualism is threaded through this book without explicit discussion. Let me say a few concluding words about it now. In his challenging book, In Defense of Elitism, William A. Henry III makes this observation: The rest of the world wants to come here because America is better not just economically better but politically better, intellectually better, culturally better. Ours is a superior culture, and it is so precisely because of its individualism. More than any other world power, in fact, we gave to global consciousness the very idea of the individual as the focal point of social relations not the king, not the army, not the church, and not the tribe. Just when the world is rushing toward us and our ways, let us not slide toward embracing theirs. [6] Individualism is an ethical-political concept and also an ethical-psychological one. In the ethical-political sphere, it upholds the principle of individual rights. It insists that a human being is an end in him- or herself, not a means to the ends of others. It rejects the doctrine that we are born to serve others and that self-sacrifice is the ultimate virtue. It regards not self-sacrifice but self-realization and self-fulfillment as the moral goal of life. It celebrates the human person. In the ethical-psychological sphere, it holds that a person should learn to think and judge independently, valuing nothing higher than the sovereignty of his or her own mind, and insists that any other course betrays our well-being and our highest potential. Individualism is not solipsism, and it does not deny the importance of human relationships or how much we learn from each other or the fact that we can realize ourselves only in a social context. It does not stand against community but insists that independence is its proper base. It celebrates autonomy. Just as a community is best nourished by the individualism of its members, so individualism requires the foundation of self-responsibility. It cannot exist without it. If we understand this, we understand the inappropriateness of attacking individualism by equating it with "doing whatever one likes." To do whatever I "like," regardless of reality, context, or the rights of others, and therefore regardless of my promises and commitments, is sometimes to use others as means to my ends and thereby to violate the very essence of individualism. An individualist lives by his or her own thought and effort, neither sacrificing self to others nor others to self. An individualist deals with others through the exchange of values (material or spiritual). This is what independence means in human relationships. The notion of an "individualist" who respects no one's rights but his own is a straw man. If individualism is upheld as a moral principle, then it must be universal, must apply to all human beings. If I claim rights for myself that are inherent in my nature, I cannot deny them to you. If I deny the rights of others, I cannot claim them for myself. No one can claim the moral right to a contradiction. Allow me a very personal example. When I was twelve or thirteen, I stole some money from the cash register in my father's clothing store. Everyone in the family was dumfounded and no one quite knew what to say to me. The exception was my oldest sister, Florence, who was wise enough to know the words that could reach me. She knew that I already prized independence as a cardinal value. She took me aside and said, "Apart from the fact that you had no right to take money that didn't belong to you, stealing contradicts everything you say you admire. You talk about independence, but no one can be independent who takes what belongs to someone else. Doing so ties you to others in the worst way. Stealing is dependency. A truly independent person respects the rights of others, no matter what." That conversation happened over fifty years ago, and I am still grateful for it. It was one of the most important things anyone ever said to me. Now let me share another story, this time about a corporate client of mine, to dispel another confusion about individualism. I was working with a brilliant founder-owner of a small but rapidly growing business who had difficulty understanding the idea of "teamwork" as it applied to him, although he had no trouble understanding how it applied to others in his organization. His staff complained that he often held himself aloof, failed to share information about his activities that would make their own work more meaningful and productive, and generally tended to operate like "the Lone Ranger," sometimes leaving chaos behind him. We discussed the need for a better flow of information between him and his people, and the need to break down the wall that was felt between him and them. He looked at me sheepishly and said, "I know you're right. I know it in my head. But ... all my life I've been this somewhat alienated character. You know what I mean. My people are right: I do see myself as the Lone Ranger. And boy! it's hard to let go of that." I was silent for a moment, not certain how best to proceed, and then I remembered that the sport he most enjoyed watching was hockey. "Hockey is an interesting sport," I began and he immediately responded, "Yeah, it sure is, I love it!" I went on, "Well, the thing about hockey players is, each one of them's a real individualist they're anything but a bunch of conformists! and yet, out on the rink when they're playing, they all absolutely count on each other, they have to be able to count on each other, and the more perfectly in sync they are, the more in tune with each other, the more powerful they are as a team. I mean, nobody does 'his own thing' regardless of what's going on around him. He does what the situation requires, right?" He grinned and stared up at the ceiling, and I felt I could see the brain cells in his head whirling around purposefully. Then he replied, "Now that gives me something to think about, something that makes sense. Yeah, if I look at it that way ... that's a kind of team player I can be. I can live with that." He reflected a moment longer, than repeated, "Yes. I can do that." Then he chuckled, "Hockey. Pretty good." One last point: Individualism does not deny that we have responsibilities toward others, but it defines them differently from the way collectivism does. Individualism teaches that a person has the right to exist for his or her own sake. It views help to others as benevolence, not as duty, and as a choice, not a mortgage on our life that one was born with. Collectivism asserts that the individual exists to serve others. Collectivism rejects the entire notion of individual rights. It treats not the individual but the collective, the group, the tribe, as the primary moral unit to which the individual is subordinate, as we have seen in Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, Red China, and other countries ruled by some variant of this ideology. Individualism holds that the primary responsibility one has toward others is to respect their rights and freedom, not to initiate force or fraud against them. Beyond that, we have the obligation to honor those agreements and commitments into which we have voluntarily entered. Finally, we must not be willing participants in a slave society. But beyond that, are we our brother's keeper? Are we to justify our existence by the service we render others? Are we the property of whoever may be in need? As we have already seen, individualism answers no: Such bondage is incompatible with the principle that each person is an end in him- or herself and does not belong to others the principle of self-ownership. This principle, to the extent that it has been implemented, is the crowning social innovation of Western civilization, the bedrock of political freedom. The ironic thing about the ideas of individualism and self-responsibility is that everyone understands them properly and practices them appropriately some of the time. The question is, Can we learn to live them consistently? Our answer to that question will determine the kind of world we create in the twenty-first century. Notes [1] "Eurocentrism Revisited," Commentary, December 1994. [2] For example, with respect to the impact of the Industrial Revolution and capitalism in England, a 1983 study by Peter Lindert and Jeffrey Williamson found that the real wages of English blue-collar workers doubled between 1819 and 1851. [3] For details, see Criminal Justice? by Bob Bidinotto. [4] For an important part of the answer, see The Dream and the Nightmare: The Sixties' Legacy to the Underclass, by Myron Magnet. In this remarkable work of social analysis, the author presents evidence that the rebellion of the sixties against an ethic of hard work, self-discipline, and deferred gratification in the name of "I want it now and without effort!" generated a shift of values that was internalized by the underclass more than by any other group, with tragic, demoralizing results. Government social policy was not the cause of this culture shift but an expression of it. [5] For an interesting discussion of the growing importance of this "third sector" in the American economy that is, the not-for-profit institutions aimed at addressing a variety of human needs, and doing so far more effectively than any government see Peter Drucker's The New Realities. For discussion of why charitable and philanthropic activities expanded so much during the 1980s (and why they may drop again under the Clinton presidency), see Charles Murray's essay "Little Platoons" in the anthology Good Order, edited by Brad Miner. [6] Perhaps it is of some interest to mention that this Pulitzer Prize-winning culture critic for Time magazine, and extraordinarily astute social observer was (he is deceased) not a libertarian but "a registered Democrat, and a card-carrying member of the ACLU." Questions and Answers: 5 April 1998 Karen Reedstrom asks: In any of your discussions with Ayn Rand on the subject of children, did she ever discuss parent's obligations to their children? If so, what are they? Also, did she ever mention if she had thought seriously at any time in her life about having a child herself or did she agree with her mother that it was a joyless duty? Nathaniel Branden responds: To answer the second part of your question first, Rand said specifically and more than once that she never for a moment considered having a child. Not because she saw motherhood necessarily as a "joyless duty" but (a) because she did not find within herself any desire for children and (b) she wanted the freedom to devote herself entirely to her work, and she was keenly aware that childbearing entails serious responsibilities. Which leads me to her (and my) view of parental obligations. The key to understanding the nature of parental obligation lies in the moral principle that human beings must assume responsibility for the consequences of their actions. A child is the responsibility of his parents, because (a) they brought him into existence, and (b) a child, by nature, cannot survive independently. (The fact that the parents might not have desired the child, in a given case, is irrelevant in this context; he is nevertheless the consequence of their chosen actions-a consequence that, as a possibility, was foreseeable.) The essence of parental responsibility is: to equip the child for independent survival as an adult. This means, to provide for the child's physical and mental development and wellbeing: to feed, clothe and protect her; to raise her in a stable, intelligible, rational home environment, to equip him intellectually, training him to live as a rational being; to educate him to earn his livelihood (teaching him to hunt for instance, in a primitive society; sending him to college, perhaps, in an advanced civilization). When the child reaches the age of legal maturity and/or when she has been educated for a career, parental obligation ends. Thereafter, parents may still want to help their child, but he or she is no longer their responsibility. A reasonable expectation that they will be able to afford the basic minimum necessary for food, clothing, shelter and education, should be the prerequisite of rational parents' decision to have children. However, parents are not morally at fault if, due to the father's or mother's illness or some other unforeseeable economic disaster, they are unable to provide for their child as they had expected to; in such a case, they are obliged simply to do the best they can. If parents forgo other purchases in order to provide for their child's necessities, their action is not a sacrifice, and they have no moral right to regard it as such. One of the cruelest injustices that parents can perpetrate is to reproach a child for being a financial burden or for requiring time and attention, as if the child's legitimate needs were an imposition on them-to complain to the child of the "sacrifices" made for his or her sake, as if the child were to feel apologetic or guilty-to state or imply that the child's mere existence is an unfair strain, as if the child had any choice in the matter. Above the level of necessities, it is the standard of living of the parents that properly determines the standard of living of the child, appropriately scaled to his age and level of development. It is the responsibility of the child, as she grows older, to understand (if and when it is the case) that much of what she receives, above the ordinary, is an expression of her parents' benevolence and affection-and should be acknowledged as such in the form of reciprocated consideration and good will. If his parents are genuinely devoted to the child, if they treat the child justly and do their conscientious best to guide him or her, the appropriate response on the child's part is appreciation, affection, and respect. It is the child's further responsibility, as he or she grows older, to understand that parents, too, have rights; that he or she may not make unlimited demands on them, as if their sole purpose were to live for and serve the child. (Note: this response is adapted from an article I wrote many years ago for The Objectivist Newsletter.) Taking Responsibility Self-Reliance and the Accountable Life (Don't miss the review of Taking Responsibility from Laissez Faire Books or these two excerpts from Taking Responsibility: A Culture of Accountability and Reflections on Happiness.) In this book, Nathaniel Branden goes beyond his previous writing on self-esteem to offer a compelling account of the critical roles of self-responsibility, self-reliance, and personal autonomy in the development of healthy selves. Taking Responsibility is a path to self-realization through self-reliance and a vision of society transformed by a new ethical individualism. Moving from the private and personal to the social and political, Branden demonstrates that only by taking responsibility for ourselves can we have any real power over our lives. Only a culture of personal accountability can sustain and preserve a civilized society. Our basic choice to think or not to think, and to live responsibly or irresponsibly reflects the essence of what it means to be human. our freedom to choose is our burden, our challenge, our glory. In Taking Responsibility Branden delineates four goals: to illuminate the meaning and implications of self-responsibility as a way of living and being in the world; to show that this practice is not an onerous burden but a source of joy and personal power; to establish that we create ourselves shape our identity through what we are willing to take responsibility for; and to demonstrate that self-responsibility, self-reliance, and individualism are essential to the well-being of our society. Whether our goals concern career issues or love relationships, we need to understand how intimately success and happiness are tied to self-responsibility. We need to know what is up to us and what is not up to us. We need to understand that independence begins with the act of thinking of choosing to look at the world through our own eyes and of consciously choosing the values that will guide us, rather than uncritically accepting them from others. The issue of self-responsibility, Branden shows, has acquired a new urgency in the modern world, in which mind work has replaced muscle work; authoritarian hierarchical structures are giving way to more open, communicative structures; and cognitive skills are of paramount importance. Today's world needs men and women who are able and willing to think, to be self-directing and self-managing, to respond to problems proactively rather than passively waiting for someone else to do something, to be initiators and innovators. In Taking Responsibility, Branden demonstrates not only the personal and social importance of self-reliance but the specific steps by which it may be achieved. Self-Esteem in the Information Age by Nathaniel Branden, Ph.D (NathanielBranden@compuserve.com) Copyright 1997, Nathaniel Branden, All Rights Reserved This essay appears in the Drucker Foundation's collection of business essays, The Organization of the Future (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1997). We have reached a moment in history when self-esteem, which has always been a supremely important psychological need, has become an urgent economic need the attribute imperative for adaptiveness to an increasingly complex, challenging, and competitive world. We now live in a global economy characterized by rapid change, accelerating scientific and technological breakthroughs, and an unprecedented level of competitiveness. These developments create demands for higher levels of education and training than were required of previous generations. Everyone acquainted with business culture knows this. What is not equally understood is that these developments also create new demands on our psychological resources. Specifically, these developments ask for a greater capacity for innovation, self-management, personal responsibility, and self-direction. This is not just asked at the top. It is asked at every level of a business enterprise, from senior management to first-line supervisor and even to entry-level personnel. A modern organization can no longer be run by a few people who think and many people who merely do what they are told. Today, organizations need not only a higher level of knowledge and skill among all those who participate but also a higher level of independence, self-reliance, self-trust, and the capacity to exercise initiative in a word, self-esteem. This means that persons with a decent level of self-esteem are now needed economically in large numbers. Historically, this is a new phenomenon. Recent and emerging technological and economic realities may be driving our evolution as a species, commanding us to rise to a higher level than our ancestors. If this premise is correct, it is the most important development of the twentieth century and in its ramifications the least appreciated. It has profound implications for the organization of the future and the values that will have to be dominant in corporate culture values that serve and celebrate autonomy, innovativeness, self-responsibility, self-esteem (in contrast to such traditional values as obedience, conformity, and respect for authority). The Roots of Self-Esteem Let me begin with a definition. Self-esteem is the experience of being competent to cope with the basic challenges of life and of being worthy of happiness [1]. It is confidence in the efficacy of our mind, in our ability to think. By extension, it is confidence in our ability to learn, make appropriate choices and decisions, and manage change. It is also the experience that success, achievement, fulfillment happiness are appropriate to us. The survival-value of such confidence is obvious; so is the danger when it is missing. Over three decades of study have led me to identify six practices as the most essential to building self-esteem. All are relevant to the organization of the future. 1.The practice of living consciously: respect for facts; being present to what we are doing while we are doing it (e.g., if our customer, supervisor, employee, supplier, colleague is talking to us, being present to the encounter); seeking and being eagerly open to any information, knowledge, or feedback that bears on our interests, values, goals, and projects; seeking to understand not only the world external to self but also our inner world as well, so that we do not act out of self-blindness. When asked to account for the extraordinary transformation he achieved at General Electric, Jack Welch spoke of "self-confidence, candor, and an unflinching willingness to face reality, even when it's painful," which is the essence of living consciously. 2.The practice of self-acceptance: the willingness to own, experience, and take responsibility for our thoughts, feelings, and actions, without evasion, denial, or disowning and also without self-repudiation; giving oneself permission to think one's thoughts, experience one's emotions, and look at one's actions without necessarily liking, endorsing or condoning them. If we are self-accepting, we do not experience ourselves as always "on trial," and what this leads to is non-defensiveness and willingness to hear critical feedback or different ideas without becoming hostile and adversarial. 3.The practice of self-responsibility: realizing that we are the authors of our choices and actions; that each one of us is responsible for our life and well-being and for the attainment of our goals; that if we need the cooperation of other people to achieve our goals, we must offer values in exchange; and that the question is not "Who's to blame?" but always "What needs to be done?" 4.The practice of self-assertiveness: being authentic in our dealings with others; treating our values and persons with decent respect in social contexts; refusing to fake the reality of who we are or what we esteem in order to avoid someone's disapproval; the willingness to stand up for ourselves and our ideas in appropriate ways in appropriate circumstances. 5.The practice of living purposefully: identifying our short-term and long-term goals or purposes and the actions needed to attain them, organizing behavior in the service of those goals, monitoring action to be sure we stay on track and paying attention to outcome so as to recognize if and when we need to go back to the drawing-board. 6.The practice of personal integrity: living with congruence between what we know, what we profess, and what we do; telling the truth, honoring our commitments, exemplifying in action the values we professes to admire; dealing with others fairly and benevolently. When we betray our values, we betray our mind, and self-esteem is an inevitable casualty. A Leader's Self-Esteem Leaders often do not recognize that "who they are" as people affects virtually every aspect of their organization. They do not appreciate the extent to which they are role models. Their smallest bits of behavior are noted and absorbed by those around them, not necessarily consciously, and reflected via those they influence throughout the entire organization. If a leader has unimpeachable integrity, a standard is set that others may feel drawn to follow. If a leader treats people with respect associates, subordinates, customers, suppliers that tends to translate into company culture. The higher the self-esteem of the leader, the more likely it is that he or she can inspire the best in others. A mind that does not trust itself cannot inspire greatness in the minds of colleagues and subordinates. Neither can leaders inspire others if their primary need is to prove themselves right and others wrong. (Contrary to conventional wisdom, the problem of such insecure leaders is not that they have a big ego, but that they have a small one.) If leaders wish to create a high self-esteem/high performance organization, the first step is to work on themselves: to work on raising their own level of consciousness, self-responsibility, etc. They need to address the question: Do I exemplify in my behavior the traits I want to see in our people? (Or am I like the parent who says, "Do as I say, not as I do?) This principle, of course, applies not only to CEOs but to managers on every level. This leads to the question: How does an individual work on his or her own self-esteem? I discuss this question at length in The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem, but here are a few suggestions. Working on One's Own Self-Esteem The practices that cultivate and strengthen self-esteem are also expressions of self-esteem. The relationship is reciprocal. If I operate consciously, I grow in self-esteem; if I have a decent level of self-esteem, the impulse to operate consciously feels natural. If I operate self-responsibly, I strengthen self-esteem; if I have self-esteem, I tend to operate self-responsibly. If I integrate the six practices into my daily existence, I develop high self-esteem; if I enjoy high self-esteem, I tend to manifest the six practices in my daily activities. If we want to learn to operate more consciously, we need to ask ourselves, What would I do (or do differently) if I brought five percent more consciousness to my dealings with other people? If I brought five percent more consciousness to, for example, implementing our mission, rethinking strategy, creating more outlets for individual creativity and innovativeness in our organization? What facts do I need to examine that I have avoided examining? Or again, if I operated five percent more self-acceptingly, or self-responsibly, or self-assertively, or purposefully, or with greater integrity, what would I do differently? Am I willing to experiment with those behaviors now? If I recognize that if I brought five percent more self-esteem to my dealings with people I would treat them more generously, why not do so now? If I know that with more self-esteem I would better protect my people, why not do so now? If I understand that with higher self-esteem I would face unpleasant facts more straightforwardly, why not choose to do so now? When we do what we know is right, we build self-esteem. And when we betray that knowledge, we subvert self-esteem. Encouraging Self-Esteem in an Organization A few suggestions for leaders and managers who wish to encourage consciousness in their people: 1.Provide easy access not only to the information they need to do their job, but also about the wider context in which they work the goals and progress of the organization so they can understand how their activities relate to the organization's overall mission and agenda. 2.Offer opportunities for continuous learning and upgrading of skills. Send out the signal in as many ways as possible that yours is a learning organization. 3.If someone does superior work or makes an excellent decision, invite him or her to explore how and why it happened. Do not limit yourself simply to praise. By asking appropriate questions, help raise the person's consciousness about what made the achievement possible, and thereby increase the likelihood that others like it will occur in the future. If someone does unacceptable work or makes a bad decision, practice the same principle. Do not limit yourself to corrective feedback. Invite an exploration of what made error possible, thus raising the level of consciousness and minimizing the likelihood of a repetition. 4.Avoid overdirecting, overobserving, and overreporting. Excessive managing ("micromanaging") is the enemy of autonomy and creativity. 5.Plan and budget appropriately for innovation. Do not ask for people's innovative best and then announce there is no money (or other resources) because the danger is that creative enthusiasm (expanded consciousness) will dry up and be replaced by demoralization (shrunken consciousness). 6.Stretch your people. Assign tasks and projects slightly beyond their known capabilities. 7.Keep handing responsibility down. For encouraging self-acceptance: 1.When you talk with your people, be present to the experience. Make eye contact, listen actively, offer appropriate feedback, give the speaker the experience of being heard and accepted. 2.Regardless of who you are talking to, maintain a tone of respect. Do not permit yourself a condescending, superior, sarcastic, or blaming tone. The Foundations of a Free Society by Nathaniel Branden, Ph.D. (NathanielBranden@compuserve.com) Copyright 1994, Nathaniel Branden, All Rights Reserved This article is based on Nathaniel Branden's remarks at the Cato Institute on November 2, 1995. Some years ago, shortly before the collapse of the Soviet Empire, I was an invited speaker at a conference of company CEOs and presidents in Acapulco, Mexico. Another of the speakers was Gennady Gerasimov, who you may remember was Gorbachev's spokesperson to the West. I went to hear his talk, which he opened with a joke. And the joke went like this: The Soviet Union has invaded and successfully conquered every country on the planet, with one exception: New Zealand. The Soviet Union has chosen not to invade New Zealand. Question: Why? Answer: So we would know the market price of goods. And of course everybody in the audience got the joke, and everybody laughed, and I sat there stunned. My mind went back 40 years to when I met Ayn Rand, who directed me to the works of Ludwig von Mises, the economist who first pointed out the impossibility of economic calculation under socialism and explained why a socialist system would have to end in economic collapse. And I thought of my first years at the University of California at Los Angeles, when I attempted to explain Mises's argument, and the ridicule that I encountered. I recall one professor in particular, a professor of government, who told me, "The trouble with you is you're just prejudiced against dictatorships." Now, 40 years later, a representative of the Soviet Union is acknowledging the truth of Mises's observation in a joke, and it's treated as self-evident. So the world has turned. And at one level the battle between capitalism and socialism appears to be over. Very few people any longer take socialism seriously as a viable political form of social organization. At the same time, the battle for capitalism, in the laissez-faire sense, in the libertarian sense, is very far from over. It's as if the enemies of capitalism in general and business in particular have a thousand heads. You chop one off and a hundred more appear, under new names and new guises. A great deal of work is being done these days in one area after another, by such institutions as Cato and by scholars around the world, to provide an increasing mountain of evidence that no other social system can compete, in terms of productivity and the standard of living, with free-market capitalism. Moreover, there is an impressive amount of scholarship demonstrating why most government efforts to solve social problems, not only fail, but worsen the very conditions they were intended to address. One has to be more and more committed to unconsciousness as a political philosophy to retain the belief that government can lead us to the promised land. At the same time, as a long-time advocate of the libertarian vision, I have been absorbed by the question of why the battle for a free society has been so long and so hard and seems to encounter new challengers every time one falls away. What Is Required for a Free Society? Clearly more is required than Hayek thought when he argued that economic education would be sufficient to bring the world to an appreciation of free markets. My own conviction is that philosophical education is required, moral education is required, psychological education is required, and that no free society can last without an appropriate philosophy and supporting culture. A free society requires and entails a whole set of values, a whole way of looking at people at human relationships, at the relationship of the individual to the state about which there has to be some decent level of consensus. Let me describe an event that has had a profound impact on me. About 18 months ago I received a telephone call from a young female Ph.D. candidate in psychology. She had learned that I would be lecturing at a conference in South Carolina, which she would be attending, and wanted to meet with me to discuss my becoming a consultant to her on her doctoral thesis. She described herself as an admirer of my work. Only when we began to discuss how we would find each other at the conference did she mention that she was blind. I was a bit stunned: how could a blind woman know my work so well? She chuckled when I asked that question, told me to wait a minute, and the next thing I heard was a mechanical voice reading from my book The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem. It was a special computer that reads, she explained; first it scans the pages of a book, then it translates the signals into spoken words. I thought of the scientists who identified the laws of nature that underlie that achievement. I thought of the inventors who converted those laws into usable technology. I thought of the businesspersons who organized the factors of production to manufacture that machine and make it available in the marketplace. None of those people are what the conventional wisdom calls "humanitarians." And yet, if lightening the burden of human existence and ameliorating suffering are considered desirable, then what act of "compassion" for this woman could rival what was given her, not out of someone's pity or kindness, but out of someone's passion to achieve and to make money in the process? We do not hear the term "compassionate" applied to business executives or entrepreneurs, certainly not when they are engaged in their normal work (as distinct from their philanthropic activities). Yet in terms of results in the measurable form of jobs created, lives enriched, communities built, living standards raised, and poverty healed, a handful of capitalists has done infinitely more for mankind than all the self-serving politicians, academics, social workers, and religionists who march under the banner of "compassion" (and often look with scorn on those engaged in "commerce"). The late Warren Brookes, in his book The Economy in Mind, told a relevant story: [Ernst] Mahler was an entrepreneurial genius whose innovative ideas and leadership, over a period of about 20 years, transformed [Kimberly Clark, a] once-small, insular newsprint and tissue manufacturer into one of the largest paper corporations in the world, which gives prosperous employment to more than 100,000 and produces products (which Mahler helped to innovate) that are now used by more than 2 billion people. Mahler became enormously wealthy, of course. Yet his personal fortune was insignificant when compared with the permanent prosperity he generated, not only for his own company but for the hundreds of thousands who work for industries which his genius ultimately spawned and which long outlived him not to mention the revolutionary sanitary products that have liberated two generations of women, or the printing papers that completely transformed international publishing and communications for fifty years. I can safely predict that you have never heard of him up to this moment. Not one person in 100 million has. Yet his contribution has permanently uplifted the lives of millions and far exceeds in real compassion most of our self-congratulatory politicians and "activists" whose names are known to all. The moral of the story is that a relatively small number of inventors and capitalists have made incalculable contributions to human welfare and human well-being and yet are not what most people think of when they think of leading a moral life. They are not factored into the moral equation. We live in a culture that teaches that morality is self-sacrifice and that compassion and service to others are the ultimate good. We don't associate morality with ambition, achievement, innovation; and we certainly don't associate it with profit making. But if the standard by which we are judging is human well-being, then whatever the enormous merits of compassion, they do not compare with the contributions to well-being that are made by the motivation of achievement. One of the great problems of our world, and the ultimate difficulty in fighting for a libertarian society, is the complete lack of fit between the values that actually support and nurture human life and well-being and the things that people are taught to think of as noble or moral or admirable. The calamity of our time and all times past is the complete lack of congruence between the values that, in fact, most serve life and the values we are taught to esteem most. So long as that lack of congruence exists, the battle for freedom can never be permanently won. Spiritual Needs People have not only material needs, they have psychological needs, they have spiritual needs. And it is the spiritual needs that will have the last word. Until the libertarian vision is understood as a spiritual quest and not merely an economic quest, it will continue to face the kind of misunderstandings and adversaries it faces today. So I'm enormously interested in what has to be understood if a free society is to survive and flourish. A free society cannot flourish on a culture committed to irrationalism. And 20th-century philosophy has witnessed a virulent worldwide rebellion against the values of reason, objectivity, science, truth, and logic under such names as postmodernism, poststructuralism, deconstructionism, and a host of others. It's not an accident that most of the people doing the attacking also happen to be statists. In fact, I don't know of any who aren't. You cannot have a noncoercive society if you don't have a common currency of exchange, and the only one possible is rational persuasion. But if there is no such thing as reason, the only currency left is coercion. So one thing that libertarianism in the broad philosophical sense has to include is respect for the Western values of reason, objectivity, truth, and logic, which make possible civilized discourse, argument, conversation, confrontation, and resolution of differences. Self-Responsibility Another great value that was once central to the American tradition, and that has now all but disappeared, is one very close to my heart as a psychologist, namely the practice of self-responsibility. We began as a frontier country in which nothing was given and virtually everything had to be created. We began as a country of individualism in which, to be sure, people helped one another and engaged in mutual aid, but it was certainly taken as a foregone conclusion that each individual adult bore primary responsibility for his or her own existence. If you helped people, it was to get them back on their feet. The assumption was that the normal path of growth was from the dependence of childhood to the independence and self-responsibility of adulthood. That vision has all but vanished, if not from our culture, then from the intellectual spokespersons for this culture. We hear more and more stories about the insane things that happen when people are no longer held to any kind of accountability or self-responsibility. You may have heard of the agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation who was found to be embezzling money from the bureau to feed his gambling habit. When he was discovered, he was fired. He sued the FBI under the Americans with Disabilities Act, arguing that he was being discriminated against because he had a disease, namely gambling addiction. The judge ordered him reinstated on the job. Has there ever been a civilized society in which it has been easier to avoid responsibility? As a psychologist, I am keenly aware that in working with individuals, nothing is more important for their growth to healthy maturity than realizing that each of us has to be responsible for our own life and well-being, for our own choices and behavior, and that blaming and dependency are a dead end; they serve neither self norothers. You cannot have a world that works, you can't have an organization, a marriage, a relationship, a life that works, except on the premise of self-responsibility. And without that as a central cultural value, there is no way for people to really get what libertarianism is all about. One of the main psychological, ethical underpinnings of libertarianism is the premise that we must take responsibility for our own lives and be accountable for our own actions. There is no other way for a civilized society to operate. For thousands of years, to turn to an ethical dimension, people have been taught that self-interest is evil. And for thousands of years they have been taught that the essence of virtue is self-sacrifice. To a large extent that is a doctrine of control and manipulation. "Selfish" is what we call people when they are doing what they want to do, rather than what we want them to do. The world is changing. Imagine, for example, that a speaker was addressing a room full of women, only women, and he said, "Ladies, the essence of morality is realizing that you are here to serve. Your needs are not what is important. Think only of those you serve; nothing is more beautiful than self-sacrifice." Well, in the modern world, such a speaker would rightly be hooted off the stage. Question: What happens if the same speech is made to a mixed audience? Why is what's wrong with it different if men are also in the audience? We need to rethink our whole ethical framework. We need to rethink and realize that it is the natural right of an organism, not only to defend and to sustain its own life, but to fulfill its own needs, to pursue its own values, bound by the moral obligation not to violate the rights of others by coercion or fraud, not to willingly participate in a coercive society. The Animus toward Business For a very long time in virtually every major civilization we know of, there has been a terrific animus toward businesspersons. It was found in ancient Greece, in the Orient, everywhere. The trader, the banker, the merchant, the businessman has always been a favorite villain. But if we understand that the businessman is the person most instrumental in turning new knowledge and new discoveries into the means of human survival and well-being, then to be anti-business is in the most profound sense to be anti-life. That doesn't mean that one glamorizes business or denies the fact that businesspeople sometimes do unethical things, but we do need to challenge the idea that there is something intrinsically wrong about pursuing self-interest. We need to fight the idea that profit is a dirty word. We need to recognize that the whole miracle of America, the great innovation of the American political system, was that it was the first country in the history of the world that politically acknowledged the right to the pursuit of self-interest, as sovereign, as inalienable, as basic to what it means to be a human being. The result was the release of an extravagant, unprecedented amount of human energy in the service of human life. We cannot talk about politics or economics in a vacuum. We have to ask ourselves: On what do our political convictions rest? What is the implicit view of human nature that lies behind or underneath our political beliefs? What is our view of how human beings ought to relate to one another? What is our view of the relationship of the individual to the state? What do we think is "good" and why do we think so? Any comprehensive portrait of an ideal society needs to begin with identifying such principles as those, and from that developing the libertarian case. We do have a soul hunger, we do have a spiritual hunger, we do want to believe and feel and experience that life has meaning. And that's why we need to understand that we're talking about much more than market transactions. We're talking about an individual's ownership of his or her own life. The battle for self-ownership is a sacred battle, a spiritual battle, and it involves much more than economics. Without the moral dimension, without the spiritual dimension, we may win the short-term practical debate, but the statists will always claim the moral high ground in spite of the evil that results from their programs and in spite of their continuing failure to achieve any of their allegedly lofty goals. I don't think that there is any battle more worth fighting in the world today than the battle for a truly free society. I believe that we really need to think through all the different aspects from which it needs to be defended, argued for, explained, encouraged, supported; and then according to our own interests and areas of competency, we pick the area in which we can make the biggest contribution. Marx, Freud, and Freedom My own view is that the philosophical and the moral and ultimately the psychological are the base of everything in this sphere. And I'll give just one concluding example of the psychological. When people think of the disintegration and deterioration of a semifree society such as we've had, they think of Marx as a very negative influence, which of course he was. They are much less likely to appreciate the relevance of a man from my own profession, Sigmund Freud. What could Freud have to do with the welfare state? My answer is, plenty. It was Freud and his followers who were most responsible for introducing into American culture and spreading the doctrine of psychological determinism, according to which all of us are entirely controlled and manipulated by forces over which we have no control, freedom is an illusion, ultimately we are responsible for nothing. If we do anything good, we deserve no credit. If we do anything bad, we deserve no reprimand. We are merely the helpless pawns of the forces working upon us, be they our instincts or our environment or our toilet training. Freud, whatever his intentions, is the father of the "I couldn't help it" school. (Perhaps credit should be shared with behaviorism, the other leading school of psychology in this country, that propounds its own equally adamant version of determinism.) The inevitable result of the acceptance of determinism, of the belief that no one is responsible for anything, is the kind of whining, blame shifting, and abdication of responsibility we have all around us today. Any advocate of freedom, any advocate of civilization, has to challenge the doctrine of psychological determinism and has to be able to argue rationally and persuasively for the principle of psychological freedom or free will, which is the underpinning of the doctrine of self-responsibility. My book Taking Responsibility addresses the task of showing the relationship between free will on the one hand and personal responsibility on the other as well as exploring the multiple meanings and applications of self-responsibility, from the most intimate and personal to the social and political. And that I see as the much wider canvas and much wider job still waiting to be done: to provide a philosophical frame so that people will understand that the battle for libertarianism is not, in essence, the battle for business or the battle for markets. Those are merely concrete forms. It's the battle for your ownership of your own life. Search: Browse: Explore this book buying info table of contents editorial reviews customer reviews See more by this author all books by Jeff Walker Customers also bought these books these other items Share your thoughts write a review e-mail a friend about this book The Ayn Rand Cult by Jeff Walker List Price: $19.95 Our Price: $15.96 You Save: $3.99 (20%) Availability: Usually ships within 24 hours. See larger photo Paperback - 350 pages (December 1998) Open Court Publishing Company; ISBN: 0812693906 ; Dimensions (in inches): 0.76 x 9.20 x 5.99 Amazon.com Sales Rank: 78,592 Avg. Customer Review: Number of Reviews: 33 Write an online review and share your thoughts with other readers! Customers who bought this book also bought: The Stance of Atlas: An Examination of The Philosophy of Ayn Rand; Peter Erickson Feminist Interpretations of Ayn Rand (Re-Reading the Canon); Mimi Reisel Gladstein(Editor), Chris Matthew Sciabarra (Editor) My Years With Ayn Rand; Nathaniel Branden The Fountainhead : An American Novel (Twayne's Masterworks Studies, No 169); Douglas J. Den Uyl, Uyl Den Click here for more suggestions... Auctions and zShops sellers and our other stores recommend: The AYN RAND FDC with the DOLLAR $ SIGN (Current bid: $3.75) 6 cass THE FOUNTAINHEAD Ayn Rand (Save 35%) (Price: $19.95) Reviews Editorial Reviews (12) Customer Reviews (33) Editorial Reviews Publishers Weekly, 1/25/99 Devastating. . . a useful corrective to the Rand mystique. Library Journal, 3/15/99 A valuable and original contribution to Rand studies. He analyzes the Objectivist movement, Rand's leadership role, and the politics of her inner circle in terms of the cult dynamic. This analytical perspective avoids the common extremes of hagiography and vilification that mark many accounts of Rand's schismatic movement. A solid contribution to 20th-century intellectual history. read more From Kirkus Reviews , December 15, 1998 Much adored and much reviled, Ayn Rand finds no sympathy at the hands of Canadian investigative journalist Walker. Like many others, he compares the Objectivist guru and Atlas Shrugged author to a cult leader, while attacking her claims of originality, consistency, literary talent, and morality. Rand's novels made free-marketeers out of almost as many 1950s and '60s teens as Kerouac's On the Road made restless beatniks. At least two generations have been influenced by her loyalty to a peculiarly... read more Kirkus Reviews, 12/15/98 Conveys vividly the frightful mess that was Ayn Rand. read more See all reviews... Customer Reviews Write an online review and share your thoughts with other readers! Very amusing, indeed Reviewer: Olga Gardner from NJ December 24, 1999 In the very beginning of his book, Jeff Walker aptly points out that people either heavily get into Ayn Rand in their teens -- or not at all. I first read FOUNTAINHEAD and ATLAS SHRUGGED at 31 and, while seriously impressed by her political and economic clairvoyance, was puzzled by her bizzarre view of humans and human nature and her desire, demonstrated in both novels, to steamroll over anybody who didn't fit her definition of a hero. Besides, I never understood how could a philosopher, who preached individualism and self-reliance, attract tens of thousands of adoring followers. Ayn Rand's ideal was not a follower, therefore, the followers could not, by definition, live up to her ideals or have her respect (which they didn't). Jeff Walker does a very thorough job of answering just that question. Yes, his theory may be considered debatable. It's an opinion, and he argues it convincingly and with style. He even preempts the insults, such as you may find below, by pointing out that when people identify too closely with their system of beliefs, they have no choice but defend them tooth and nail from any hint of cognitive dissonance. The politically correct, who wear their bleeding hearts on their sleeves, react just as hysterically to any fact they find uncomfortable. It's a fanatic's way. Walker's book is written with humor and decency, it's an easy and enjoyable read (and I don't read much nonfiction), and it has guts. The more you know about Ayn Rand from objective sources, the more sense Walker's book makes. 2 people found this review helpful. Was this review helpful to you? A solid deconstruction of a fascinating personality Reviewer: adrec@internetcds.com from Portland, Oregon December 23, 1999 I found this to be a hypnotizing read, so much so that I paused reading another book in order to start this one -- a rare thing for a compulsive like me. Walker has obviously done a lot of research for the book. He quotes both die-hard Objectivists and anti-Objectivists alike. The intimate, personal anecdotes regarding Rand are very interesting. The book is not without flaws, however. Walker is remarkably objective for writing on such an emotional subject, but he can go into Rand-bashing mode occasionally. The cover is an unnecessary gimmick. I would have preferred more depth on the philoosophical roots of her ideas as well as what may have shaped her personality. Walker spends a bit too much time simply describing Rand's temper tantrums instead of looking for the causes of them. Overall, a must-read if you are at all interested in Objectivism in particular or cults in general. 1 person found this review helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Idolatry as the path to disaster and destruction Reviewer: Mordecai December 21, 1999 I wonder whether 'Objectivists' are aware of the idolatrous nature of the Ayn Rand cult. Readers of Jeff Walker's helpful book may find the following remarks helpful as well. (See also my reviews of CAPITALISM: THE UNKNOWN IDEAL, THE VIRTUE OF SELFISHNESS, and PHILOSOPHY: WHO NEEDS IT.) Alyssa Rosenbaum, like so many other would-be secular Messiahs, was connected to but alienated from the Jewish faith: her father was a Russian Jew, her mother was not, and she was raised in a strictly secular environment. Her hostility to G-d is evident throughout her work - her 'man-worship' and her belief in the so-called 'benevolent universe' are so evidently idolatrous that I need not comment further on this point. Also, her presentation of herself as the embodiment of her philosophy helped to generate an atmosphere of idolatrous worship of Rand herself. (And like her predecessor the false Messiah Shabbatai Zvi, she felt free to alter the Law at will - in her case, to permit an adulterous relationship with her young protege and populariser, Nathan Blumenthal/Nathaniel Branden. Incidentally, Shabbatai Zvi was publicly promoted as the Messiah by a different Nathan: Nathan of Gaza.) However, in her philosophy she seems to have borrowed certain isolated *elements* of Judaism and attempted to place them, quite inconsistently, on a highly unstable secular (approximately Marxist/Leninist) foundation. Moreover, as indicated by a remark she once made to Isabel Paterson, she seems to have considered herself a 'Jewish intellectual' even though, by strictly Halakhic standards, she would not be regarded as a Jew. I suspect further that some of her expressed admiration for Thomas Aquinas ('I am a bridge of that kind' - The Romantic Manifesto) was in fact directed at Moses Maimonides z"tzl, whose work exercised a profound influence on the great Roman Catholic philosopher. Walker includes a somewhat helpful chapter comparing 'Objectivism' with Judaism, though some of his points of comparison have more to do with secular-Jewish culture than with Judaism proper. But it is certainly the case that while 'Objectivism' certainly has adherents from many different backgrounds, its primary appeal is to secular Jews alienated from the roots of their own historical faith. (Much the same thing could have been said about other more or less secular quasi-Judaisms - e.g. Spinozism, Marxism, Freudianism, and Felix Adler's 'Ethical Culture' - indeed, from a Halakhic point of view, even Reform Judaism.) This is perhaps not surprising, since 'Objectivism' is *structurally* very much like Judaism - with ATLAS SHRUGGED as the new Torah (featuring 'John Galt' as a new, messianic Moshe who delivers the new Law via radio broadcast) and Rand's nonfiction writings serving as a sort of Talmud. Even the very Name of G-d is carried over into the new secular cult: G-d's self-appellation 'eyeh asher eyeh' ('I am that I am') is simply transferred to His Creation, becoming the false god 'reality', whose name is 'A is A'. Walker's book is very interesting, then, as an illustration of Miss Rand's deeply ambiguous relationship with the Jewish religion and her misguided attempt to retain some of its elements on a clearly idolatrous basis. I highly recommend it to readers interested in the 'cult phenomenon' generally and in its effects on Judaism specifically. Also of interest: Gary Eisenberg's SMASHING THE IDOLS: A Jewish Inquiry into the Cult Phenomenon. 3 people found this review helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Garbage Soup Reviewer: William Thomas from Albany, NY December 3, 1999 Jeff Walker has read everything about Rand, and interviewed many of those who knew her. Yet his book is simply a dumping ground for insults, where one source contradicts another, and where Walker contradicts himself. After endless anti-Rand vituperation, we find at the end, in a bizarre fable of Rand's life lived differently, that if she had only been a bit more nurturing, then she would deserve to be considered a major American thinker. If only Walker had been a lot more balanced, this book might be worth buying. 5 people found this review helpful. Was this review helpful to you? See all 33 customer reviews... Search: Browse: Explore this book buying info table of contents editorial reviews customer reviews See more by this author all books by Jeff Walker Customers also bought these books these other items Share your thoughts write a review e-mail a friend about this book The Ayn Rand Cult by Jeff Walker Our Price: $15.96 You Save: $3.99 (20%) Availability: Usually ships within 24 hours. Paperback - (December 1998) 350 pages Editorial Reviews Publishers Weekly, 1/25/99 Devastating. . . a useful corrective to the Rand mystique. Library Journal, 3/15/99 A valuable and original contribution to Rand studies. He analyzes the Objectivist movement, Rand's leadership role, and the politics of her inner circle in terms of the cult dynamic. This analytical perspective avoids the common extremes of hagiography and vilification that mark many accounts of Rand's schismatic movement. A solid contribution to 20th-century intellectual history. From Kirkus Reviews , December 15, 1998 Much adored and much reviled, Ayn Rand finds no sympathy at the hands of Canadian investigative journalist Walker. Like many others, he compares the Objectivist guru and Atlas Shrugged author to a cult leader, while attacking her claims of originality, consistency, literary talent, and morality. Rand's novels made free-marketeers out of almost as many 1950s and '60s teens as Kerouac's On the Road made restless beatniks. At least two generations have been influenced by her loyalty to a peculiarly stark form of individualism, the reification of rationality, and moral approbation of selfish profit-seeking. In the midst of the Cold War, Randian thinking struck a chord, and she, the former Russian Jew Alissa Rosenbaum, attracted a sizeable circle of devoted followers. Too devoted, says Walker, claiming that this philosophical success story tells less than half the tale. He argues that Objectivism garnered intelligent yet sadly impressionable youths, intimidating them into total emotional submission. Interviews with prominent former Objectivists reveal Rand's repulsively didactic character, her intolerance for criticism or disagreement of any kind, and her vindictiveness when spurned by a disciple. Walker does not stop at characterizing Rand as a cultist. He seeks to discredit her altogether by showing that, despite her brainwashed followers' claims that Rand was the greatest thinker since Aristotle, everything she wrote was either derivative (from a combination of Jewish tradition, laissez-faire manifestos, and mystery novels), devoid of literary value (he performs a painful count of monstrously overused words in Atlas), or both. That Ayn Rand was inflated beyond her merit will shock nobody but Objectivists, who will never read this book. Walker's expos is a bit too shrill, repetitive, and even snide to rise persuasively above the people he describesbut he does convey vividly the frightful mess that was Ayn Rand. -- Copyright 1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. Kirkus Reviews, 12/15/98 Conveys vividly the frightful mess that was Ayn Rand. Robert Fulford, Globe & Mail, 1/23/99 An absorbing portrait of the still-thriving Rand movement. Walker provides some striking glimpses of the Randians [who] take themselves so seriously that they will never be in danger of understanding how amusing the rest of the world finds them. Liberty, February 1999 Comprehensive. . . . [Walker] interviewed more than two dozen participants in Rand's affairs and tracked down hundreds of written sources, many of them obscure. His bibliography contains more than 500 entries. . . . and there is some pretty interesting stuff. The Ayn Rand Cult will infuriate those who admire Rand and hearten those who hate her. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung A detailed and often highly interesting expose-biography. Utne Reader Rand's extraordinarily tense brand of rationalism held that emotions are controlled by conscious thought. In practice, the doctrine meant that that Rand could explode as often as she wanted: her increasingly dark emotions were "rational" by definition and her extensive bullying was always justified. This and many other weirdnesses in the Rand world led Jeff Walker, in The Ayn Rand Cult, to use the C word about objectivism and. . . he makes a case. It's hard not to see the abject Rand worship, the intellectual rigidity, the emotional abuse, and the traitor-hunting that have plagued orthodox objectivism in the same light as the excesses of Scientology or the Unification Church. Book Description A half-century after the publication of THE FOUNTAINHEAD, Ayn Rand's ideas remain both highly controversial and extremely influential. In THE AYN RAND CULT, Jeff Walker exposes the woman behind the ideas, questioning whether they are as original as her followers claimed. He looks at the devoted following she attracted in the 1940s and 1950s, how it was shaped by her volatile and domineering personality, and what remains of it today. Ultimately, Walker argues, her Objectivist movement came to practice the opposite of the principles it espoused-individualism and objectivity-evolving into a dictatorial cult in which members suffered arranged marriages, took new names in homage to Rand, and were tried and excommunicated for expressing opinions different from Rand's. Synopsis Ayn Rand and her philosophical school, Objectivism, have had a considerable influence upon American popular culture, yet the true story of her life and work has yet to be told. In this book, Jeff Walker debunks the cult-like following that developed around the author of the classics "Atlas Shrugged" and "The Fountainhead"--a cult that persists even today. The author, Jeff Walker (jbwalker@interlog.com) , November 28, 1998 'Ayn Rand Cult' receives raves from 3 distinguished figures The back cover of 'The Ayn Rand Cult' displays blurbs of rave reviews from Michael Shermer (editor of SKEPTIC magazine & author of the best-selling 'Why People Believe Weird Things', Martin Gardner (Skeptical Inquirer columnist & author of 'Fads & Fallacies in the Name of Science', 'Science: Good, Bad & Bogus' & numerous other classics) and Dr. Albert Ellis (legendary, best-selling, world-renowned psychologist, originator of Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy). About the Author Jeff Walker has worked as a journalist for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and written for many periodicals, including the GLOBE AND MAIL, the TORONTO STAR, FREE INQUIRY, LIBERTY, and the FINANCIAL TIMES OF CANADA. He lives in Toronto. Jeff Walker (jbwalker@interlog.com) Whose ego do these 'egoists' serve? Reviewer: A reader November 5, 1999 I don't know which would be worse: a movement of 'egoists' each devoted solely to his *own* ego, or a movement of false egoists each devoted (at least in effect) to the ego of Ayn Rand. At any rate, the Subjectivist (oops! 'Objectivist') movement is unquestionably the latter, Jeff Walker having in this book exploded the movement's every last pretense of 'objectivity'. An excellent book about a very sick woman and the havoc she wrought on her unsuspecting acolytes. 2 people found this review helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Objectivism is evil; maybe Rand was, too Reviewer: rmwj from St. Louis Mo October 21, 1999 This book exposes Rand as a malignant narcissist who scapegoated everyone who disagreed with her. Scapegoating may be the essence of evil--I am perfect; since you disagree with me you are evil and must be destroyed. Rand projected her own hate and envy onto her "second-handers." She was obsessed with power and control over her unstable followers. She tried to redefine terms according to her own beliefs and misrepresented every philosopher and economist she read. It requires an enormous amount and self-delusion to believe what her followers make her out to be. 3 people found this review helpful. Was this review helpful to you? A Step Toward Understanding Obejctivism Reviewer: Tom Devine (tomdevine@yahoo.com) from Amherst, MA October 17, 1999 This book -objectively- reviews the Objectivist movement and its grand leader(s). Especially moving is the section comparing the Objectivist vision with traditionally Jewish values and the final section extrapolating what Rand could have been. Kudos to the author and all who are willing to -get his point-. Now we can more easily consider Rand's actual ideas, the validity of which, as stated by Walker, is independent of the flaws of Miss Rand and her followers. 2 people found this review helpful. Was this review helpful to you? A true assessment of the objectivist cult Reviewer: A reader from Florida October 11, 1999 The reviewers of this book that gave it one star are so deluded by the lies and errors in thinking of the objectivists that they can't see the truth even when it smacks them in the face. I called myself an Objectivist at one time and vowed to follow it's principles. What did it do for me? It made me a cold, pessimistic, overly judgmental person. I feel sorry for anyone who comes under the spell of such Objectivists as Leonard Peikoff and Harry Binswanger. 1 person found this review helpful. Was this review helpful to you? A terrific expose of the strangest cult in modern history Reviewer: A reader September 21, 1999 This excellent and thoroughly documented book should be read in conjunction with John Robbins's WITHOUT A PRAYER: AYN RAND AND THE CLOSE OF HER SYSTEM. Let Robbins show you all the contradictions in Rand's "philosophy," and let Jeff Walker show you what her cult was really all about. It's not Walker's book that is "full of hate"; it was Rand herself. 1 person found this review helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Full of hate Reviewer: A reader from White Bear Lake, Minnesota July 28, 1999 The author is typical of the collectivist critics Rand spoke of as "hating the good for being the good." He laughs at people like myself, who have lived his/her life as an Objectivist. Ayn Rand changed my life one day at a paperback rack when I was a teenager. I read the back cover of the paperback which said, "One man against the world," and since I saw what a mess the world was and no one was doing anything about it, I was therefore drawn to it. The book was The Fountainhead. I then read all Ayn Rand's other books. There were no more contradictions in the world after I read them. Mr. Walker berates Ayn Rand for being a human being - he thinks that dragging her off the pedestal into the mud for being human will hurt her. He ignores her razor-sharp intellect and gives her no credit for being a great philosopher and novelist. He's just a typical critic, envious of others for their achievements. Guess what else? I have TWO children, and they have also grown up under the influence of Ayn Rand! Ayn Rand not only introduced me to classical liberalism, but also Austrian Economics and all that it would bring to a world perishing in self-sacrifice. The writer, Mr. Walker, is a collectivist who envies those who love freedom and would do anything to stop others from enjoying their lives. He actually thinks that intimidation and humiliation would actually produce the results he wants. No! Two things that have helped bring Objectivism to the world today and increase its popularity are Bill and Hillary Clinton. No, Mr. Walker, it won't work! 4 people found this review helpful. Was this review helpful to you? A real challenge to hardcore objectivists Reviewer: gillpad@eznet.net from Webster, NY July 15, 1999 This is the sort of book that would really rankle those hardcore objectivists who might read it. But those with cultist inclinations aren't likely to do so. The book is filled with examples of seemingly absurd behaviour on the part of Randians -- most of it documented by sources that appear to be plausible. Walker addresses some issues that haunt objectivists. One of the major ones is the lack of children. Like smoking, this is one of those areas that makes little sense. To those who are so intent on pursuing their own ends selfishly, having children is just an obstacle to self- fullfillment. Of course, most of the those who do this, do so more because they are cold, stiff individuals, who don't want to be bothered by unpredictable children. In reality, children are real values -- but this is something that seems to elude the Randian cultist. Walker wonders if being a one dimensional adherent to someone elses philosophy represents individuality? I wonder also. Is smoking, merely because your cult leader does it and intellectually can justify it, a good idea? I guess not. This is just ONE example of the parroting of Rand values by cultists that is so reprehensible. I kind of wonder about the only objectivist publication that Walker praises: In Full Context. This very readable montly (albeit not read by many) was once the griping grounds of as missanthropic an ogre as could be found amongst the Objectivists -- David Overly, who haunted it's pages with bitter denuciations of Nathaniel Branden in much the same fashion as does Walker. Ok, so maybe that's the attraction: both of these dudes hate Branden. Seemingly, for reasons that go above and beyond the call of sensibility. Walker does his book no justice by the viscious assault on Branden and everything he has done in life. Branden is exceedingly poplular at what he does, mainly because he is very good at it, as well as creative. Walker also dilutes the integrity of his story when he claims that Rand's Atlas Shrugged is second or third rate, not a classic. Well it is. Like it or lump it. It has enduring value, it has an inimitable style, a very good plot, and will probably be around long after Walker's book has lost it's luster. Walker's book is a good read. Objectivists who refuse to read it will remain the same as always, narrominded, but those who have a more carefree, less oppressive sense of life, will find some value in it, and might even laugh at some of the things they previously held dear and unassailable. 3 people found this review helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Three stars: a totally fai      !"#$%&'()*+,-./0123456789:;<=>?@ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ[\]^_`abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz{|~r assessment Reviewer: A reader from New York City June 14, 1999 Okay, so Ayn Rand was really a great philosopher, and Walker doesn't even understand her philosophy so he wouldn't know. Unless someone is fairly well-versed in the Analytic tradition, and can "read between the lines" when they read Rand, her most crucial insights are lost. She makes mince-meat (implicitly) of a host of 20th Century fakes - whose status as philosophers is never questioned - especially G. E. Moore, Bert Russell, A. J. Ayer, Santayana, Dewey, and many others. BUT: if we can trust Walker's third-hand quotes, he shows that the Objectivist MOVEMENT is a total farce, and that Nathaniel and Barbara Branden are total frauds, fools, hooligans. Their reputation is totally ruined, just in time for it to be doubly ruined by the Showtime Movie, THE PASSION OF AYN RAND (Barbara Branden's reputation is ruined because she's gone public with the opinion that the film is good and has intellectual merit; Nathaniel's reputation is ruined by the film's content). This book is worth the money; it really casts a different light upon the movement and some of the leading personalities. It's funny that Rand disliked Shakespeare so much and his penchant for volition-less characters: like Hamlet, she - and everything she touched - was tragically flawed. 1 person found this review helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Rand's own insight turned against her Reviewer: A reader June 7, 1999 Somewhere in 'Philosophical Detection,' Rand notes that when a philosophical system accomplishes the exact opposite of its expressed aims, one may be sure that it is actually a system of rationalisation. In this fairly thorough work, Jeff Walker applies this very insight to Rand's own little personality cult - which, claiming devotion to the ideals of reason, independence and creativity, actually accomplishes only the creation of a stifling atmosphere of conformity and Rand-worship. By the time Walker is through with his full-frontal assault on Rand, it is painfully obvious that 'Objectivism' is little more than a system of rationalisation for Rand's own whims, errors, subjective tastes, and paranoid delusions. Walker does not spare the rod regarding Rand's associates, either. In particular, the chapters on Nathaniel Branden, self-esteemer extraordinaire, and on Leonard Peikoff, the Peter Keating of the 'Objectivist' movement, are masterful and eye-opening. (The chapter on Alan Greenspan is less so, but only because I disagree with the economic viewpoint from which Walker criticises Greenspan's fiscal policies. This chapter would have been more effective if Greenspan had been critiqued from the point of view of, say, Murray Rothbard, whose opinions on noneconomic matters are represented throughout the remainder of the book.) Read this book at once and wake up from the illusion that Rand was a great thinker. She was no such thing. 1 person found this review helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Recommended With Misgivings Reviewer: A reader from New York May 3, 1999 Walker never succeeds (to my mind) in proving his central thesis, that Rand was a cult more than an intellectual worthy of study in her own right. Nevertheless, this is a bold and worthwhile book. Think of it as a legal brief against Rand -- with separate point headings as to why her philosophy is wrong, why it is unoriginal, why she was a failure as a human being, why her followers are even worse, etc. In other words, a "take no prisoners" attitude . . . but one which, unlike the self-evidently dishonest critiques from the National Review, seems to have an underlying sympathy for the project that Rand undertook (if not its execution). A marvelous chapter on the life that Rand might have led is, alone, worth the price; although silly on one level, because Rand would not and could not be Rand anymore if she did some of those things, it nonetheless offers illuminating points of contrast with the real, deficient Rand. 1 person found this review helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Can you face the Truth? Reviewer: matsl@iies.su.se from Stockholm, Sweden April 26, 1999 It seems to me that one has to separate Objectivism from the Cult it generated. Rand DID write some very helpful things, but also some nonsense. There is a lot of evidence around that she was not a very pleasant person to be around unless you treated her like a omniscient prophet. The problem is that her legacy has been transformed into a dogma by some people who refuse to see her dark sides. I strongly urge you to read Jeff Walker's The Ayn Rand Cult. It's not a great book, but I believe his research is sound. He has read most of the literature about Rand, as well as interviewing Objectivists and ex-Objectivist that knew Rand. Then ask yourself this question: Which one is most truthful, Jeff Walker's book or the hagiography Ayn Rand: A Sense of Life? I guess reason requires you to read both before you make up your mind. 1 person found this review helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Ignores her Positive Contributions Reviewer: A reader from Virginia April 8, 1999 I am certainly no "Objectivist" and have many personal and political disagreements with Ayn Rand's philosophy and behavior. However, the author of this book completely misunderstands the issue of Ms. Rand's appeal to modern youth. People like to read her works because (despite all of her flaws and errors) she affirms the basic worth of the self and argues that personal happiness, autonomy and integrity are the highest values. In a world that tramples on our souls and crushes individuality, this is a message that we need to hear. I view Rand like she viewd Aquinas--one of the flawed but brilliant thinkers who points the way to the Truth without finding the ultimate destination herself. 2 people found this review helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Confirmation of this book's three-star status Reviewer: Scott Ryan (SandGRyan@worldnet.att.net) from Cuyahoga Falls OH March 25, 1999 My earlier three-star review has long since scrolled off this page, so here's another. The comments of mpresley@bellsouth.net are accurate and to the point, as are those of a number of other reviewers. I would add the following: Walker is pretty good on the topic of the Objectivist movement's cultic features, but this book will not give you much of a clue about what anyone finds attractive about Rand's philosophy to begin with. Not all of her supporters are cultists (or even "neo-Objectivists"), and Walker doesn't go very far toward explaining her broader appeal to people who _do_ think for themselves. (Strictly speaking, of course, that was not his purpose in writing this book. But it would have allowed him to make many of his points by contrast.) I will, however, give Walker lots of points for here and there raising legitimate _questions_ about the content of that philosophy even though that was not his primary aim. And as I and other reviewers have noted: whatever the book's editorial shortcomings, Walker's closing chapter, a fictional biographical sketch of Ayn Rand as she might have been, is excellent. The contrast with her actual behavior will be obvious to anyone who reads the rest of the book. 2 people found this review helpful. Was this review helpful to you? An OK book, but not scholarly or profound, Reviewer: mpresley@bellsouth.net from Florida March 20, 1999 Jeff Walkers book, "The Cult of Ayn Rand", is a mixed bag. The writing style ranges from erratic to concise and cogent, however his obvious disdain for Rand and the members of her circle intrudes on his analysis and places his own objectivity at question (pun unintended). On the other hand, anyone interested in understanding Rand and her followers ought to read the book in spite of its imperfections. The first clue as to the tone of the book is the cover. Rand (never what many would call a beautiful woman) appears as a caricature. This, when coupled with the garish yellow on red layout immediately tells the reader that what is inside is not likely to be either pretty or particularly refined. In this case it is easy to judge the book from its cover. The book is fairly well documented from both existing sources along with his own interviews. Walker begins with a history of the inner workings of Objectivism as a cult followed by several brief discussions of key playersNathaniel Brandon, Leonard Peikoff, and Alan Greenspan. The portraits are not flattering. Unfortunately, in the case of Greenspan, inasmuch as he was not a key player in either the formation or evolution of the "cult," Walker has to spend his time criticizing Greenspans handling of Federal Reserve monetary policy. In Walkers estimation, the Fed Chairmans job performance has been and continues to be marginal at best. In the authors opinion, Greenspan is indirectly responsible for the Savings and Loan debacle, and directly responsible for, among other things, "Black Monday" and George Bushs reelection failure. Walker attempts to explain Greenspans Federal Reserve policy actions as a function of the influence of Rands zero inflationist and gold standard views. On the other hand, he is forced to recognize that in light of Greenspans actual work at the Fed any direct philosophical link to Rand is tenuous at best. Also, the reader begins to understand (or at least suspect) the basis for Walkers own economic leanings since Lester Thurow is, apparently, the source for many of his economic views. Walker does a better job in his discussions of Brandon and Peikoff. The former is viewed as an unethical opportunist at best and an intellectual fraud at worse. Interestingly, when criticizing Brandons peculiar pop psychology Walker uses as a standard the work of Albert Ellis. In an ironic twist, Walker is scandalized when Peikoff unabashedly tells an Objectivist lecture audience that, before her death, Rand recommended that all Objectivist students purchase his (Peikoffs) recently published essay, "a brilliant book." Yet, after leaning on the anti-Rand Ellis, is it a coincidence to find on the books back cover a glowing recommendation from, you guessed it, Ellis himself, wherein the psychologist calls Walkers new book, "a brilliant, scholarly, and comprehensive critique"? Walkers book is OK, for what it is, but is neither brilliant nor really scholarly. Many of Walkers statements appear less than profound and some range from the petty to the grotesque. The worst is his insinuation that Nathaniel Brandon was, through negligence, somehow responsible for the death of his second wife. The lack of scholarship shows in his frequent use of blanket statements such as, "Psychologists hold that membership in a group is all the more highly valued when one has to go through hell to obtain it." Does he mean "all psychologists"? Or is it only "some?" Is it just Ellis? This statement is really not much different than explaining that people value what they work for--certainly not a brilliant revelation and definitely not one that requires a psychological consultation in order to understand. Also, some of Walkers comments on his own writing seem rather gratuitous and patronizing. For instance, after an in depth discussion of the bitter antagonisms between Peikoff and his relative, Barbara Brandon, Walker glibly tells us that the two are "obviously" not kissing cousins. Walker next discusses specific aspects of Rands philosophy in spite of his statement in the introduction that it is not his intention to examine doctrinal aspects of Objectivism. In the sections, "An Ignorant Oracle" and "The Banality of Ayn Rands Thought" Walker makes a good case for Rands lack of experience (understanding) and hostility towards both contemporary popular culture and established high culture. He then gives a very brief outline of others criticisms of Rands philosophy. Again, it is unfortunate that Walker has decided to forgo any in-depth discussion of Rands alleged philosophical mistakes since the uninitiated reader must take at face value the goodness of the arguments presented against Rand without the benefit of a presentation of specific points of contention. For instance, when discussing Rands ethics (the section "The Virtue of Selfishness") Walker introduces reasonable questions concerning Rands non-violence dictum vis--vis her valuation of individual rights, however he fails to offer obvious and competing answers to his own questions regarding how an Objectivist might handle conflicts of interests. On the other hand, Walkers three page discussion of Rand and Kant is quite cogent and, to my mind, quite succinctly underscores the Rand cults misinterpretation and distortion of the critical philosophy It is unfortunate that Walker missed a chance to conduct a more serious study with a more serious tone. There is no question that the cult of Rand deserves a scholarly analysis, however Walkers book leaves the reader wanting. It is as if the author could not decide whether he wanted to attempt a rigorous analysis or just limit himself to anecdotal pop journalism. To my mind, the latter won out. The author evidently writes for television. This might explain the books sometimes superficial and "in your face" tone.. It is almost the printed equivalent of something you might see on 60 Minutes or 20/20 without the rakishness of either. The book can be recommended for the casual reader who wants an introduction to the bizarre world of Ayn Rand. For the serious student of Objectivism, the reader would do well to explore the comprehensive bibliography Walker provides 1 person found this review helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Missed the point Reviewer: William E. Schmidt (kotw@voicenet.com) from New Jersey, United States of America March 16, 1999 Clearly anyone who belonged to any sort of fanatical following to Ayn Rand, as the author suggests, never did understand the tenants of her philosophical system in the first place. Perhaps, as a regular human being, she did not live up to the incredible standards that her novel's heroes did, but she left behind an incredible amount of passion in her belief in the individual and the self. One could nitpick the books all day long, and her life, and her style, but i found the Fountainhead, and Atlas Shrugged refreshing. They are some of the only individualist propoganda in existence, and I got a hearty laugh every time (and i'm sure it was about 1000 times) in Atlas Shrugged, that she referred to the government, or the "liberals" as looters and moochers. Our culture is inundated with demands for obligations in all directions, from the burden of taxes, to the guilt factor of volunteerism and charity. Guilt is, a tenent of our culture, and a rather unhealthy one. These novels are a scream against compulsion. I love America and freedom, and i despise the thought of giving away any freedom to the government. Hold individuals, not society responsible for their actions. More than anything else, be proud, hold your achievements first, and create. Let humans achieve their potential, without a law library of stifling regulation. Or as her most notorious character put it, "Get the Hell out of my way!" 2 people found this review helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Sauce for the goose . . . Reviewer: A reader from U.S.A. March 5, 1999 hcdaniel@yahoo.com writes, "Everything Walker accuses Rand of, namely specious reasoning, attacking her opponents on a personal level, etc., he commits himself in his book." So think of this book as sauce for the goose. Rand _did_ commit the offenses of which Walker accuses her, and she doesn't deserve any better treatment than she receives at his hands. Walker did a lot more research before writing his slams against Rand than Rand did before writing her slams against Kant. The editing is pretty slovenly; there are lots of little glitches (e.g. we're given comments from an otherwise-unidentified "Dwyer" on p. 118, and only those "in the know" will recognize O-ist William Dwyer without checking the endnotes). Walker also writes as though he has a major axe to grind, which maybe he does. So what? Read this book for the sheer fun of seeing Rand's own nasty habits turned against her. She certainly has it coming. By the way, despite hcdaniel@yahoo.com's comments, I liked the book's last chapter. 1 person found this review helpful. Was this review helpful to you? A sincere disappointment Reviewer: hcdaniel@yahoo.com from Michigan, United States February 26, 1999 What a disappointment. Walker had a wealth of information gathered for this book from research he had done for CBC television. Everything Walker accuses Rand of, namely specious reasoning, attacking her opponents on a personal level, etc., he committs himself in his book. The last chapter alone: how Rand's life could have been had she lived as Walker would have had her live, should give you some indication. 4 people found this review helpful. Was this review helpful to you? A worthy undertaking very badly executed. Reviewer: editor@tuckernews.com from Atlanta, GA February 19, 1999 Since my first two "reviews" no longer appear on this page, it's time for an update. Judging from the 12 other reader reviews posted to date, precisely what I predicted in my own second review has occurred: hardcore "Objectivists" cannot spew enough venom in Walker's direction, and readers new to the "movement," who were not around between 1960 and 1982 (when Rand died), are getting a very distorted view (Walker's personal theories) of both the philosophy, the admirers of her work (both inside and out of the "inner circle"), Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan in particular, the woman herself and the reasons for her controversial success and source(s) of her writing. I was asked, by the publisher, to write a blurb for the bookjacket of Mr. Walker's book, because I knew (and still know) many of those whom Walker quotes so indescriminately and because I described myself to Open Court as an "ex-cultist." But after reading the first complete review copy available (last August), and after extended discussion with Walker's editor, I declined to have anything to do with Walker's mixture of truth, hearsay, unfounded opinion, first-hand observations inaccurately reported by Walker -- in short a journalistic mess and nothing anywhere near what I expected from a professional investigative reporter (e.g., Bob Ortega, "IN SAM WE TRUST..."). The "book" of Mr. Walker's should be taken, if read at all, with several large grains of salt. It should also be obtained from your local library. Amazon.com has far better material on which to spend your money. -John Allen 4 people found this review helpful. Was this review helpful to you? dishonest (nothing more needs to be said) Reviewer: A reader from USA February 18, 1999 This "author" (in name only) has given birth to a work that is to Objectivism and literature what a malignant tumor is to a healthy, vibrant organism. He has taken second-hand, third-hand, and evidently fourth-hand reports on personal clashes, and presents them as if he is a newspaper reporter with access to the facts. He has blithely accepted the contorted views of those who both hate and parasitize Miss Rands work, and presents their stories as if they are valid, objective reports. He is even so credulous as to accept without question the contorted perspectives he was spoon fed by those who are deeply motivated to misrepresent what are obvious philosophical disputes. What fills the wasted paper between this books covers is only hate-filled gossip, flagrant hearsay, and a blatant nihilistic desire expressed in terms that wouldnt even muster a "D" on a grade school book report. The "author's" motivation is obvious; it is just as obvious as the absurdity of the one-sided quotes from alleged discussions that occurred as much as 20 to 30 years ago. Unfortunately, Amazon.com does not allow zero stars, or even negative stars, because that is what this book deserves. For those honestly interested in Rand's philosophy of Objectivism, spend your money and time on Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand's Journals, and the other works on Objectivism. 3 people found this review helpful. Was this review helpful to you? It's About Time Reviewer: Eric (eric123@airmail.net) from Dallas, TX February 11, 1999 The author successfully demonstrates that Objectivism as philosophical society beginning in the 1950's descended from lofty ideals of individualism into a dogmatic cult that is still in operation. The book shows that the the Objectivist Movement was and continues to be a valuable example of how liberty and individuality are incompatible with the demand, made by Rand and her inner circle ("The Collective"), that followers of Objectivism rigidly adhere to a rigid code of thinking and behavior. I believe the author makes an error, however, when he claims that Rand in practice was more Nietzschian than Aristotilian: I would bet that one would find buried in her personal library a well-thumbed copy of Max Stirner's "The Ego and It's Own". As Nietzsche put it: "You seek followers? Seek zeros!". Rand would seem to have mis-read this statement as a plan of action rather than as a warning against starting a personal cult. 1 person found this review helpful. Was this review helpful to you? A must-read for anyone interested in Ayn Rand, pro or con Reviewer: monroe@mpm.edu from Milwaukee, WI January 28, 1999 Jeff Walker's The Ayn Rand Cult (LaSalle, IL: Open Court, 1999) is a long overdue, much-appreciated close examination of not only Rand's own works, but her mythography as well. Thorough and well-documented, Walker addresses point-by-point Rand's philosophy and fictions as well as those of her acolytes, who do indeed appear to constitute a "cult" as Walker's title names them. Particularly interesting (and often hilarious) is Walker's painstaking archaeology of the sources of Rand's texts, not only in her idiosyncratic readings of the philosophic tradition (although, as Walker notes, she was not much of a reader of primary sources), but, especially, in the popular (though typically now obscure) fictions and films of her day. A must read for anyone interested in Rand, pro or con. See also Mary Gaitskill's novel, Two Girls, Fat and Thin. 1 person found this review helpful. Was this review helpful to you? The best of the Rand bashers (that's not saying much, though Reviewer: Mike Krechmer (krechmer@bigfoot.com) from NYC January 28, 1999 Take this work as an entertaining, if deceitful, gossipy attack on Rand. The author is flatout disingenuous several times. For example, he quotes that Rand was asked if she is perfect and her seemingly affirmative response. But he edits out her immediate reaction "I don't use that word and I _never_ think of myself that". His assertion that 'Ayn' is taken from a childhood Jewish nickname is completely without evidence. Take this work with a grain of salt. Was this review helpful to you? worthwhile on its topic but hardly perfection Reviewer: johnbell@yorku.ca from Toronto, Canada January 20, 1999 This book is informative, and adds to the Brandens' biographies of Rand. I'm not sure if this is what Walker intended, but this book convinced me that Rand was not the driving force behind the cult-like group(s) that grew up around her, but that some of her sycophantic and ambitious male devotees started and sustained the groups. Rand, however, nourished her vanity, and her drugged-out sense of irreality and hypersensitivity, on the group while she was alive. She seems to have reveled in the cult of personality that Nathaniel Branden and others built around her. However it was Nat and the dudes that built the actual cult--with her approval, but not at her initiative, as far as I can tell. Walker organizes the book stiffly, is not a very good writer, and at times contradicts himself. For instance, first he approvingly quotes a prominent former inner-circle member as saying that Objectivism is a cult since so few ex-Objectivists have joined other cult-like groups, their bad experiences with cults having wised them up to cultism--but later in the book he approvingly quotes another prominent former inner-circle member as saying that Ojectivism is a cult because so many people with Objectivist back-grounds have, before or after Objectivism, been involved with other cult-like groups. Also, I think Walker's claims of Jewish influence on Rand's thought to be inflated. Overall Walker seems a better researcher and reporter than an interpreter. 1 person found this review helpful. Was this review helpful to you? A typical smear Reviewer: walker.donald@usa.net Donald Walker from Pasadena, California January 14, 1999 As a Canadian myself I have seen many times, the smear job done on anyone who doesnt fit into a nice left of centre political box. I think that was what was at the heart of this book. Smears of 'racist' or 'cult-like' are often thrown at people or groups who dare to express a different viewpoint. It is too bad the author didnt write a book about facts instead of running around to everyone he could find who would deliver a negative quote. Overall, disappointing. But if you don't like Ayn Rand anyway, then I suppose you might enjoy the preaching to the choir aspect, however tedius it might become. 2 people found this review helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Somewhat slipshod overview of Objectivism's cultlike aspects Reviewer: Scott Ryan (SandGRyan@worldnet.att.net) from Cuyahoga Falls OH January 12, 1999 On the whole this is a fairly informative overview of the odd "personality cult" that grew up around Ayn Rand. All the familiar details are here: Rand's megalomaniacal rationalizations of her own whims and tastes, her shameful treatment of personal friends and acquaintances, her affair with Nathaniel Branden and the subsequent schism in the Objectivist movement, her refusal to retract her public statements endorsing smoking even as she was dying of lung cancer, the ousting of "heretics" from the "orthodox" Objectivism currently defended by Leonard Peikoff and the second-rate hangers-on at the Ayn Rand Institute. But be careful to take it with several grains of salt; Walker sometimes goes over the top in his personal opinions, without always identifying them as such. (One egregious example: in his chapter on Nathaniel Branden, he as much as blames Branden for causing the death of Branden's second wife Patrecia, who died tragically owing to a failure to take her epilepsy medication. Walker's grounds for this horrible accusation consist of nothing more than his own assertions about what Branden "should have known.") This book leaves the impression that it was patched together without much attention to detail; for example, here and there, out of the blue, we are given a quote from "Smith" with no indication _which_ of the book's three major Smiths (Kay Nolte Smith, Phil Smith, and George H. Smith) is being quoted. (This information is available in the book's endnotes, but its absence in the text seems to indicate that the book was pieced together from shorter snatches with no eye toward continuity.) Numerous interviewees are "introduced" more than once (sometimes only a few pages apart), and several stories are repeated needlessly. There is no doubt that the phenomenon Walker is trying to document was and is quite real, but this would have been a better book if he had taken the trouble to edit it more thoroughly (including editing _out_ some of his own opinions). Kudos to Walker, though, for the work's final section: a fictional "biographical sketch" of an Ayn Rand that could have been. As Walker effectively shows through his imaginative reconstruction, had Rand been a little less paranoid and a little more willing to seek professional help for her depression and other psychological disorders, her personal life and influence might well have measured up more closely to her public persona. 1 person found this review helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Thrashing around trying to make a buck off Rand Reviewer: frand@signaldata.com from Tennessee January 10, 1999 Rather than starting here, first read the review in "Liberty Magazine, Jan 99", and then read Atlas Shrugged and decide for yourself. As the validity of Objectivism continues to sweep the world, we can expect to see attempts like this to thwart it. As Rand herself said, read her works yourself and then you judge their validity using _your own mind_. Don't you find it interesting that these writers never address her philosophy, but they only seem to address issues dear to their hearts, it seems, like cults? Read Atlas Shrugged! (also read the reviews in amazon.com of Atlas Shrugged; all 400 of them to see how Atlas Shrugged has changed lives all over the world, and comes out on top in surveys.) 1 person found this review helpful. Was this review helpful to you? If you have any curiosity about Objectivism, check this out Reviewer: A reader from San Francisco, CA December 17, 1998 I know several people who have been consumed by Objectivism. This book does an excellent job of explaining how and why this happens. I highly recommend it, whether you are a fan of Rand, hate her, or have never even heard of her. Was this review helpful to you? This *IS* a cult, not a "cult-like organization" Reviewer: A reader from San Francisco, CA December 16, 1998 I've had a long-term relationship destroyed by my then-girlfriend's involvement with Objectivism. From the time she decided to join an Objectivist study group at our college, to the final disintegration of our involvement three years later, her personality progressively changed from shy, warm, loving and idealistic to ideological, cold, bitter and alienated. Her Objectivist friends constantly encouraged her to end our relationship because I was not an Objectivist and had no plans to become one. Small difficulties that we used to deal with easily became huge problems that to her typified my moral debasement. By the time she decided she would have no further contact with me I was depressed and confused as to how a love that had been so intense and fulfilling could so quickly disintegrate into a sustained attack against my deepest held values of autonomy, rationality and self-respect -- values which Objectivism claims to advocate. Reading this book was like having a veil of ignorance lifted concerning the pain and confusion of that relationship. I am now able to see, thanks to Walker's detailed and well-written compilation of data, how my ex-girlfriend's change in personality fits into a larger pattern of control which Objectivism exercises over its followers, whether they belong to Peikoff's sect, David Kelley's, or any number of smaller splinter groups. Even many of those who claim to be free-lance Objectivists, devotees of Rand herself and not one of her interpreters, tend to manifest many of these characteristics. Though Rand and Objectivism tout reason, self-esteem and autonomy, they rely on their followers' *lack* of these virtues. The Ayn Rand Cult explains this in detail. I highly recommend this book to anyone who has had or does have respect for Rand as a philosopher or political theorist. She was neither. A huckster of false beliefs, yes; an enlightened thinker, definitely not. 1 person found this review helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Argumentum ad hominem writ large Reviewer: A reader from Chicago, Illinois December 15, 1998 This is something of a blunderbuss, scattershot, blitzkrieg attack of Ayn Rand and her adherents, by turns lurid and tedious. An aggregation of information (true or false I can't say) has been assembled, but it has not been shaped into a unified whole. Although the author's gratuitous opinion presented as fact is interpolated throughout the text, no coherent or consistent point of view ever emerges. Each successive chapter seems to contradict the preceding chapter. The argumentum, of course, is nearly all ad hominem. Some minor quibbles: 1) The author faults Ayn Rand for not making much of her Jewishness--Jewishness, not Judaism: Ayn Rand was an outspoken practicing Atheist. I don't see why she should, and the criticism strikes me as racist. 2) The author argues that certain of her ideas are "derivative" because Ayn Rand didn't read the works of certain philosophers whom he says also espouse these ideas. If Ayn did not read these philosophers then she couldn't very well have derived her ideas from them, and thus her ideas are not derivative (unless she derived them from someone else.) Maybe we might wish her better read, but this is something else entirely. 2 people found this review helpful.  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