Nathaniel Branden, R.I.P.

Nathaniel Branden, the man who turned Ayn Rand’s Objectivist
philosophy into a popular intellectual movement, died today at age
84.

He and Rand famously broke over complications involving a
long-term affair of theirs that ended badly in 1968; the tale is
told at length from his perspective in his memoir—the most recent
edition called
My Years with Ayn Rand
and interestingly, from his ex-wife
Barbara Branden’s perspective in her 1986 Rand biography,

The Passion of Ayn Rand

After the break with Rand in 1968, Branden had his own highly
successful career as a hugely popular writer on psychology, and he
is a pioneer of the vital importance
of “self-esteem”
in modern culture.

Unlike the way the concept has been denatured over the decades,
Branden, still Objectivist at heart, wrote with the understanding
that creating a worthwhile and valuable life from the perspective
of your own values was key to self-esteem, and thus to
psychological health. That is, self-esteem wasn’t something that
should be a natural given to a human, nor our birthright, but
something to be won through clear-eyed understanding of our own
emotions and their sources, and our values and how to pursue
them. 

Branden was vital to the spread of Rand’s ideas in two distinct
junctures: by creating and publicizing the ideas inherent in her
fiction through nonfiction and lectures via the Nathaniel Branden
Institute in its lectures and magazines from 1958 to 1968 (a task
Rand would almost certainly not have attempted without his prodding
and aid).

Then, after Rand broke from him and all “official” Objectivists
were required to revile him, Branden was a living example that
intelligent admiration for and advocacy of Rand’s ideas need not be
tied in with thoughtless fealty to Rand as a person, or to the
pronouncements of those who controlled her estate, with all the
attendant flaws and occasional irrationality: that one need not be
an official Randian to spread the best of Objectivism. As late as
2010, Branden published
print versions
of his NBI lectures helping systematize her
ideas under the title
The Vision of Ayn Rand
.

Branden was a friend to Reason over the years. An
interview he
gave
to the magazine back in 1971 was
vital in breaking
the then very-small-circulation publication
up into the thousands in circulation.

He was helpful and giving with information when I
researched my 2007 book on the history of the American libertarian
movement, of which he was such a major figure,

Radicals for Capitalism: A Freewheeling History of the Modern
American Libertarian Movement
.
He maintained an
interest and enthusiasm for libertarian and

Objectivist ideas til the end. And as he
told me once, to the extent that a libertarian society requires
self-realized, self-responsible people–and he believed it did–he
considered his work in psychology to be an extension of his
interest in political liberty.

Branden’s friend Jim Peron
eulogizes him at

Huffington Post
.

A Reason TV interview with Branden from 2009:


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