stumbled upon this today. interesting read.
not much else to post about btw

Quote:

As in the case of all cults and sects, a particularly vital method for moulding the members and keeping them in line was maintaining their constant and unrelenting activity within the movement. Frank Meyer relates that Communists preserve their members from the dangerous practice of thinking on their own by keeping them in constant activity together with other Communists. He notes that, of the major Communist defectors in the United States, almost all defected only after a period of enforced isolation. In short, they had room to think for themselves (e.g. ,being in the army, going underground, etc.). In the case of Randians – particularly in New York City, where the movement was largest and Rand and the top hierarchy all lived – activity was continuous. Every night one of the top Randians lectured to different members expounding various aspects of the "party line": on basics, on psychology, fiction, sex, thinking, art, economics, or philosophy. (This structure reflected the vision of Utopia outlined in Atlas Shrugged itself, where every evening was spent with the heroes and heroines lecturing to each other.) Failure to attend these lectures was a matter of serious concern in the movement. The philosophical rationale for the pressure to attend these meetings went as follows: Randians are the most rational people one could possibly meet (a conclusion derived from the thesis that Randianism was rationality in theory and in practice); You, of course, want to be rational (and if you didn’t, you were in grave trouble in the movement); Ergo, you should be eager to spend all your time with fellow Randians and a fortiori with Rand and her top disciples if possible. The logic seemed impeccable, but what if, as so often happens, one didn’t like, even couldn’t stand, these people? Under Randian theory, emotions are always the consequence of ideas, and incorrect emotions the consequence of wrong ideas, so that therefore, personal dislike of other (and especially of leading) Randians must be due to a grave canker of irrationality which either had to be kept concealed or else confessed to the leaders. Any such confession meant a harrowing process of ideological and psychological purification, supposedly ending in one’s success at achieving rationality, independence, and self-esteem and therefore an unquestioning and blind devotion to Ayn Rand. One incident of suppressed doubt of Randian tenets is revealing of the psychology of even the leading cult members. One top young Randian, a veteran of the movement in New York City, admitted privately one day that he had grave doubts on a key Randian philosophic tenet: I believe it was the fact of his own existence. He was deathly afraid to ask the question, it being so basic that he knew he would be excommunicated on the spot for simply raising the point; but he had complete faith that if Rand should be asked the question, she would answer it satisfactorily and resolve his doubts. And so he waited, year after year, hoping against hope that someone would ask the question, be expelled, but that his own doubts would then be resolved in the process. In the manner of many cults, loyalty to the guru had to supersede loyalty to family and friends – typically the first personal crises for the fledgling Randian. If non-Randian family and friends persisted in their heresies even after being hectored at some length by the young neophyte, they were then considered to be irrational and part of the Enemy and had to be abandoned. The same was true of spouses; many marriages were broken up by the cult leadership who sternly informed either the wife or the husband that their spouses were not sufficiently Randworthy. Indeed, since emotions resulted only from premises, and since the leaders’ premises were by definition supremely rational, that top leadership presumed to try to match and unmatch couples. As one of them asserted one day: "I know all the rational young men and women in New York and I can match them up." But suppose that Mr. A was matched with Miss B and one of them didn’t like the other? Well, once again, "reason" prevailed: the dislike was irrational, requiring intensive psychotherapeutic investigation to purge oneself of the erroneous ideas. Psychological Hold The psychological hold that the cult held on the members may be illustrated by the case of one girl, a certified top Randian, who experienced the misfortune of falling in love with an unworthy non-Randian. The leadership told the girl that if she persisted in her desire to marry the man, she would be instantly excommunicated. She did so nevertheless, and was promptly expelled. And yet, a year or so later, she told a friend that the Randians had been right, that she had indeed sinned and that they should have expelled her as unworthy of being a rational Randian. But the most important sanction for the enforcement of loyalty and obedience, the most important instrument for psychological control of the members, was the development and practice of Objectivist Psychotherapy. In effect, this psychological theory held that since emotion always stems from incorrect ideas, that therefore all neurosis did so as well; and hence, the cure for that neurosis is to discover and purge oneself of those incorrect ideas and values. And since Randian ideas were all correct and all deviation therefore incorrect, Objectivist Psychotherapy consisted of (a) inculcating everyone with Randian theory – except now in a supposedly psycho-therapeutic setting; and (b) searching for the hidden deviation from Randian theory responsible for the neurosis and purging it by correcting the deviation. It is clear that, considering the emotional and psychological power of the psychotherapeutic experience, the Rand cult had in its hands a powerful weapon for reinforcing and sanctioning the moulding of the New Randian Man. Philosophy and psychology, explicit doctrine, social pressure, and therapeutic pressure, all reinforced each other to generate obedient and loyal acolytes of Ayn Rand. It is no wonder that the enormous psychological pressure of cult membership led to an extremely high turnover in the Randian movement, relatively far more so than among the Communists. But so long as he was in the movement, a new Randian Man emerged, a grim and joyless figure indeed. For a while the Randians would discourse at length on "happiness," and on the alleged fact of their perpetual state of being happy, it became clear on closer examination that they were happy only by definition. That in short, in Randian theory, happiness refers not at all to the ordinary language meaning of subjective states of contentment or joy, but to the alleged fact of using one’s mind to the fullest (i.e., in agreement with Randian precepts).

Forgive me Stef, for I have sinned!

- NonE

My impression just from browsing this literature is that Rothbard exageratted his essay a bit, but the substance of it is largely corroborated by Nathaniel Brandon. His essays on objectivism are very interesting. For anyone who hasn't seen them:

http://www.nathanielbranden.com/catalog/articles.php?tPath=2

I can't help thinking of Molyneux when hearing stories about the old Rand cult. This article for instance, elicits much in common:

-the shunning of disagreement
-the move towards a proprietary psychotherapy
-the obssession in believing that "I am very happy"

This last characteristic is something that deeply bothers me in FDR. They keep going on about how their methods and suggestions make them oh so happy; but most "listener conversation" podcasts seem to show some of the most miserable people I've ever seen.

I am rather glad to admit that in many respects, being a libertarian is kind of shitty, and might bring one much pain. I would not recommend it to anyone to make them happier.

I don't know, I quite like being a libertarian. I mean, there is the beauty of the philosophical position, and being able to see through all the crap that we're being fed, and just knowing 'the truth' is wonderful and exciting. There are some social aspects to it that may not be pleasant, but it also makes one 'stand out', and that feeling of independence is quite nice

tha's why i put "the truth" in quotation marks.

I once had a very revealing conversation with a guy at a bar, of all places. He was going on about McCain, and how he was going to support him (this long before he secured the nomination) when he eventually won the nomination. Now, to me, it seems just utterly obvious that war and violence and aggression are bad, and the senator ought to really know that, given his personal experience at the Hanoi Hilton, yet he is insanely aggressive and provocative in his rhetoric.

So, long story short, after I made the above point, and some increasingly heated discussion ensued, the guy just started shouting at me, that I was an idiot, a dreamer, a utopian, a hippie, blah blah blah...but, his point, the reason he passed that judgement on me, was that, according to him, violence was necessary, maybe even good, but regardless it was absolutely required in international politics, that it was, in fact, the WAY, the ONLY WAY anything gets done in the world. Violence or it's threat.

I was just blown away by the candor and the sheer insanity of it, and he thought I was the screwball? I mean, here, in a nutshell is the problem I have with the rest of the world, but they usually don't admit it, they try and dress it up with pretty words about the common good and causes greater than ourselves, but here he came right out and endorsed the use of force, coercion, on a grand scale, as if it were the most normal thing to say, as if it were a commonplace like look both ways before you cross the street.

Anyway, there you go.

ha! that's a great last sentence there (the looking before crossing the street one)

(FUCKING WRITE DUDE! WRITE FUCKING ARTICLES YOU FUCKHEAD)

I'm pretty sure btw that McCain is clinically insane

I know, I know. Look, if it is any consolation, I am feeling really guilty about not writing that article about how liberals love guns yet. I'll get right on that as soon as I get my stupid computer working again. And the blog about the Homeopathy stuff is on hold, too. That Mac has the damned camera on it.

But thanks for the encouragement! Really, I feel obligated to live up to your expectations, and for some reason that's both comforting and motivational.