Ayn Rand Cult: Amazon.de: Jeff Walker: Englische Bücher

From Kirkus Reviews

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.

From Library Journal

Ayn Rand's novels and philosophy have been the object of widespread popular interest since the 1950s. After her death in 1982, there was a spate of biographical and critical interest; her popularity continues with a U.S. postage stamp and a television documentary, both scheduled for this spring. These two books offer divergent perspectives on Rand, her followers, and the Objectivist movement. Branden (The Art of Living Consciously, LJ 3/1/97) offers a revised version of his 1989 memoir. A personal account of his intellectual and romantic relationship with Rand and their famous break, it is useful for its insider's view of the Objectivist movement and may appeal to those interested in gossipy details of the protagonists' lives. While objectivity isn't expected in an insider's account, this memoir nonetheless lacks critical distance, even after nearly 50 years, and is marred by plodding narrative and wooden dialog. Canadian journalist Walker makes a more 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. Walker also does a credible job of placing Rand's ideas in the context of philosophies that preceded and followed her, and it offers insightful chapters on three of her major followers: Branden, Leonard Peikoff, and Alan Greenspan. His account is well researched and clearly written, though it is sometimes weighed down by an unsynthesized accumulation of detail. A solid contribution to 20th-century intellectual history.AJulia Burch, MIT Media Lab, Cambridge, MA
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Persuasive & Well-Researched 4. Juni 2000

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'The Ayn Rand Cult' is a much-needed splash of cold water on Objectivism and its charismatic founder. As a former Objectivist, I recognized the truth of Walker's words over and over again throughout this well-researched, but sometimes indifferently organized, book. 'The Ayn Rand Cult' can serve as an 'intervention' or 'deprogramming' for those who have allowed their own personalities to be absorbed by the dominating personae of Rand's fictional heroes ... and of Rand herself. What's sad is that the people most in need of this book will probably never read it!

Also recommended: 'Without a Prayer: Ayn Rand and the Close of Her System,' by John W. Robbins -- despite the author's heavy-handed Calvinism, Robbins does a good job of dissecting (and demolishing) Rand's arguments in painstaking detail.

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Idolatry as the path to disaster and destruction 21. Dezember 1999

Von Mordecai ben-Ami

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.

Whose ego do these 'egoists' serve? 5. November 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.