The Objectivist movement is a movement of individuals who seek to study and advance Objectivism, the philosophy expounded by novelist-philosopher Ayn Rand. The movement began informally in the 1950s and consisted of students who were brought together by their mutual interest in Rand's novel The Fountainhead. The group, ironically named "The Collective" due to their actual advocacy of individualism, in part consisted of Leonard Peikoff, Nathaniel Branden, Barbara Branden, Alan Greenspan, and Allan Blumenthal. Nathaniel Branden, a young Canadian student who had been greatly inspired by The Fountainhead, became a close confidant and encouraged Rand to expand her philosophy into a formal movement. From this informal beginning in Rand's living room, the movement expanded into a collection of think tanks, academic organizations, and periodicals.
Rand described Objectivism as "the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute"."About the Author" in Objectivism's main tenets are: that reality exists independently of consciousness; direct realism, that human beings have direct and inerrant cognitive contact with reality through sense perception; that one can attain objective conceptual knowledge based on perception by using the process of concept formation and inductive logic; rational egoism, that the moral purpose of one's life is the achievement of one's own happiness through productive work; that the only social system consistent with this morality is one that displays full respect for individual rights embodied in laissez-faire capitalism; and that art is "a selective re-creation of reality according to an artist's metaphysical value-judgments."
History The Collective
"The Collective" was Rand's private, humorous name for the group. In public she referred to them as "the class of '43", after the year The Fountainhead was published. cf. and . for a group of close confidants, students, and proponents of Rand and Objectivism during the 1950s and 1960s. The founding members of the group were Nathaniel Branden, Barbara Branden, Leonard Peikoff, Alan Greenspan, Joan Kennedy Taylor, Allan Blumenthal, Harry Kalberman, Elayne Kalberman, Joan Mitchell, and Mary Ann Sures (formerly Rukavina).; . This group became the nucleus of a growing movement of Rand admirers whose name was chosen by Rand as a joke based on Objectivism's staunch commitment to individualism and strong objection to all forms of Collectivism.
The Collective originally started out as an informal gathering of friends (many of them related to one another) who met with Rand on weekends at her apartment on East 36th Street in New York City to discuss philosophy.; Barbara Branden said the group met "because of a common interest in ideas".. Greenspan recalled being drawn to Rand because of a shared belief in "the importance of mathematics and intellectual rigor". The group met at Rand's apartment at least once a week, and would often discuss and debate into the early morning hours.; . About these discussions, Greenspan said, "Talking to Ayn Rand was like starting a game of chess thinking I was good, and suddenly finding myself in checkmate.". Eventually, Rand also allowed them to begin reading the manuscript of Atlas Shrugged (1957) as she completed it.; . The Collective began to play a larger, more formal role, promoting Rand's philosophy through the Nathaniel Branden Institute (NBI). Some Collective members gave lectures at the NBI in cities across the United States and wrote articles for its newsletters, The Objectivist Newsletter (1962–1965) and The Objectivist (1966–1971).; ; ; .
Nathaniel Branden Institute
The first formal presentation of Objectivism began with the Nathaniel Branden Lectures (NBL), shortly after the publication of Rand's final novel, Atlas Shrugged. Nathaniel Branden was the first member of The Collective, and later, Rand's "intellectual heir". In time, Branden and Rand became romantically involved. After the publication of Atlas Shrugged, Rand was inundated with requests for more information about her philosophy. Not wanting to be a teacher or leader of an organized movement, she allowed Branden to lecture on her behalf. Timeline of the Objectivist movement Year Event1943 1950 1957 1958 1961 1968 1971 1980 1982 1985 1987 1989 1990 1999 2000 2001The Fountainhead published Branden meets Rand Atlas Shrugged published NBI created Objectivist Newsletter starts Branden-Rand split Ayn Rand Letter starts Objectivist Forum starts Rand's death Ayn Rand Institute starts Ayn Rand Society forms Peikoff-Kelley split IOS starts JARS founded Objectivist Academic Center First Anthem Foundation fellowship
The success of NBL prompted Branden to expand his lecture organization into the Nathaniel Branden Institute (NBI). Rand and Branden also co-founded the first publication devoted to the study and application of Objectivism. The Objectivist Newsletter began publication in 1962 and was later expanded into The Objectivist..
The 1960s saw a rapid expansion of the Objectivist movement. Rand was a frequent lecturer at universities across the country. Rand hosted a radio program on Objectivism on the Columbia University station, WKCR-FM. The Nathaniel Branden Institute (NBI) hosted lectures on Objectivism, the history of philosophy, art, and psychology in cities across the country. Campus clubs devoted to studying Rand's philosophy formed throughout the country, though operated independently of NBI. Rand was a frequent guest on radio and television, as well as an annual lecturer at the Ford Hall Forum. At the peak of its popularity, NBI was delivering taped lectures in over 80 cities.The Objectivist Newsletter vol. 4 no. 12 By 1967 NBI had leased an entire floor in the Empire State Building (with The Objectivist as a sub-tenant).
In 1968, Rand publicly broke with Nathaniel and Barbara Branden.. She accused Nathaniel Branden of a "gradual departure from the principles of Objectivism", financial exploitation of her related to business loans, and "deliberate deception of several persons".; cf. . In a response sent to the mailing list of The Objectivist in 1968, the Brandens denied many of Rand's charges against them.; . The result of their conflicting claims was a "schism", as some participants in the Objectivist movement supported the Brandens, while others supported Rand's repudiation of them.; ; ; ; . Baker and Walker both use the term "schism", as does .
NBI was closed and its offices vacated, in an environment that Barbara Branden described as "total hysteria" as its former students learned about the matter.; cf. . The Brandens continued for a time to sell some of NBI's recorded lectures through a new company, but otherwise had little involvement with the Objectivist movement until their biographical books about Rand were released. and , which was originally released in 1989 under the title Judgment Day: My Years with Ayn Rand. The Objectivist continued publishing with Rand as editor and Leonard Peikoff as associate editor. Peikoff also took over Nathaniel Branden's role as the primary lecturer on Objectivism.. Peikoff later described the Brandens' expulsion as the first "of the many schisms that have plagued the Objectivist movement.".
1970s
In the 1970s, Rand gave fewer public speeches. She concentrated instead on nonfiction writing and on helping the work of her students and associates, through efforts such as a series of private workshops on epistemology that she conducted from 1969 through 1971 for about a dozen students and professionals in philosophy, math and physics. The Objectivist was replaced by The Ayn Rand Letter in 1971. While The Objectivist had published articles by many authors, The Ayn Rand Letter, marketed as a personal newsletter from Rand, published only her work (plus occasionally Leonard Peikoff's).
Throughout the decade, Peikoff continued to offer a number of lecture series on various topics related to Objectivism to large audiences, often incorporating new philosophic material."Founders of Western Philosophy" (1972) and "The Philosophy of Objectivism" (1976) Rand worked closely with Peikoff, helping edit his book, The Ominous Parallels, for which she wrote the introduction. In mid-1979, Peter Schwartz began editing and publishing The Intellectual Activist, a publication which Rand recommended to her audience. One of Rand's associates, philosopher Harry Binswanger, pitched to Rand his idea for a mini-encyclopedia of Objectivism, The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z (1986), and she approved of the project after seeing a sample of the proposed selections. Rand advised him on standards of inclusion but died before the work was completed. After the close of The Objectivist Calendar, a short publication listing upcoming events within the Objectivist movement, Binswanger began editing and publishing The Objectivist Forum, a bimonthly journal on Objectivism which had Rand's support and for which she served as "Philosophic Consultant".
1980s Upon Rand's death on March 6, 1982, Peikoff inherited her estate, including the control of the copyrights to her books and writing (barring Anthem, which is in the public domain). Shortly after Rand's death, Peikoff's first book, The Ominous Parallels, was published. In 1983, Peikoff gave a series of lectures titled Understanding Objectivism, for the purpose of improving the methodology used in studying Objectivism, as a corrective to what he describes as the "Rationalist" and the "Empiricist" methods of thought.
In 1985, Leonard Peikoff and Ed Snider founded the Ayn Rand Institute (ARI), the first organization devoted to the study and advocacy of Objectivism since the closure of NBI in 1968. The institute began by sponsoring essay contests on Rand's novels and distributing op-eds analyzing world events from an Objectivist perspective. In 1987, the institute began teaching aspiring Objectivist academics.Impact (newsletter of the Ayn Rand Institute), June 2003
Peikoff–Kelley split In 1989, another major split occurred within the Objectivist movement. Peter Schwartz criticized David Kelley, a philosopher and lecturer then affiliated with ARI, for giving a speech under the auspices of Laissez Faire Books (LFB), a libertarian bookseller.. Schwartz argued that this activity violated the Objectivist moral principle of sanction. In other words, Kelley was implicitly conferring moral approval on the organization by appearing at an event that it sponsored. LFB, in turn, was morally objectionable because it promoted books, such as The Passion of Ayn Rand (1986), that Schwartz maintained were hostile and defamatory towards Rand and Objectivism as well as being the world's center for literature promoting anarchism, which Rand condemned as "childish" and subjectivist. (Although Schwartz made no mention of it, Leonard Peikoff had signed copies of his book The Ominous Parallels at three LFB events in 1982. According to Peikoff, he later broke off relations with LFB after being told that LFB offered anarchist literature.)