Ayn Rand and the Religion of the Self

Author Ayn Rand, who Gore Vidal called the "evil" inspiration for our neo-Dickensian society, pioneered selfishness in America, making it "moral" not to give a damn about anyone but yourself.

Since the 1950s, Rand has impacted seminal American political figures that include Alan Greenspan, former chairman of the Federal Reserve Board and former president Ronald Reagan.

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI); Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX), his son, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) and Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas are also fans.

But Rand's impact on American society goes deeper than politics. 

Nathaniel Branden (a/k/a Nathan Blumenthal), psychotherapist, author and "self-esteem” advocate, was hypnotized as an adolescent by Rand’s The Fountainhead, reveling in its sense of heroic empowerment.  He got in touch with his idol, and in 1955, when Rand was pushing 50 and Branden going on 25, they began a Hollywood-style affair.

Rand brought both their spouses on board to arrange a sanctioned weekly tryst.

Nobody said no to Ayn Rand, whose passive husband Frank took his frustrations to the local bar.

By 1964, Branden, now 34, had dumped the nearly 60-year-old Rand to begin an affair with a 24-year old model.

Rand took it hard, cursing Branden, slapping his face and kicking his poor betrayed wife out of her collective for failing to tip her off about the affair.

Worried that Rand might have him assassinated, Branden fled New York City for Los Angeles, where he published about 20 books, half of them with the word "self" in the title.  Although she never forgave him, he still admires Rand.

When she was a defiant two-pack-a-day smoker, Rand scorned medical statistics as "unscientific" and "irrational".  Then she got lung cancer.  Even after she quit smoking and had surgery, she refused to change her message about smoking.

Like a lot of American kids, I read Rand's The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, finding her selfish heroes way sexy. Who at 20 doesn't think self-absorption is cool?

But in the complex world I confronted after I left college, Rand's "objective reality" failed me.  I realized that Howard Roark was an asshole.

Rand, who never grasped the totalitarian collectivism of corporate America, gave lectures titled: “America’s Persecuted Minority: Big Business", urging young corporatists to embrace "radical capitalism".

She didn't fall for Christianity, though, calling it a sign of psychological weakness.  She was her own god, after all.

Narcissism was cooler back then.

The post from Alternet.