I love Ayn Rand's books. When I'm feeling down, I can pick up "The Fountainhead" and get absorbed in its beautiful sense of life. And every time I read "Atlas Shrugged," I get something new out of it - it's like a new experience every time.

Ayn Rands philosophy is profound and simple, that’s how you know something is brilliant. She believes people are free and that they should be able to live as they choose. Furthermore, she strongly believes that one persons beliefs should never be imposed upon another. How can anyone disagree with her? She’s a little understood genius.

Barbara Branden has given a perceptive view of Ayn Rand. I especially was impressed with her identification of John Galt as Ayn Rand herself. That was insightful. Ayn Rand was fortunate in her choice of confidant, in Barbara Branden. She was empathetic and truly a great friend of the great writer.

She most certainly was a rare bird. Had that cold Russian exterior that is almost impossible to take to her yet felt compelled to listen to her and her well different views on life. We will never know if she was right or wrong since we have never lived by what she states as the way to live our lives. Hard to imagine she could even love someone but yet she did. Whether you agree with her or not you have to admire her for the work she created and where it took her. She created something, can't say that for most of yall. 🌻

it has been written in several sources that rand died of the effects of lung cancer and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, brought on by years of smoking cigarettes. an anecdote about this is that rand thought the statistics surrounding the correlation medical science makes between cigarette smoking and disease were bogus, until she saw the picture of her chest x ray indicating a large lung mass. at that time she was unflinchingly remonstrated by her doctor. it is said she never smoked again.

I am very skeptical about people who never, ever doubt themselves. There is no way such a person can be correct about their own perfection.

May she rest in peace Thanks for sharing your talent with us

If you actually read some of her non-fiction, and like her philosophy,---what she did for you was allow you to "validate" your own mind. I found she thought a lot like I did, but she gave me detail to the core of philosophy, filling the troughs of my ignorance between the peaks of my knowledge,--to a almost perfect fit on the torn edges. Today, "I Know", and that is the road to your personal greatness. Those who preach against her,---don't want you to do that.

If you have read her NON fiction work, you have already met her. This will never die.

Wow, I would Loved to have seen some of those discussions & arguments between these two women!

Interesting, Barbara Branden. I read Passion years ago, and although her love and admiration for Ayn Rand is obvious, there's also a slight resentment, possibly unknown even to herself. It's almost a mother - daughter relationship. She was Branden's girlfriend/fiance when they met the author. It was Rand who encouraged them to marry. It was Rand who had the affair with her husband and had the gall to announce the fact to her and Frank O'Connor, Rand's own husband. Barbara 's descriptions of meetings of the Collective were especially cringeworthy, with Nate denouncing someone's choice of career and Rand clapping ecstatically, all the time, and known only by the cuckolded spouses, they carried on their unsavoury affair. Don't get me wrong here: for her ideas and her work I loved Ayn Rand. But her personal life was fucked up, and led to the destruction of NBI in 1968.

"You had better stat recognizing people of ability, or else you're not going to have a world left."

@olga2415 Also she was correct about the pyschology of the collectivist. Her explaination of altruism, is extremely helpful, no one again will make you feel guilty about rejecting the altruist con game.

Objectivism/Atlas Shrugged is very comforting for me. Public school really tries to beat the shit out of your confidence and your ability, but I fought it and constantly trumped and stumped the fools who run the public education system. How pathetic of them to become intellectually bankrupted by a 13 year old! It got so bad that they just modified my schedule so I only had to go to school from 8 to 10:30, then I got bussed home so that I could teach myself using books and the internet. Pathetic.

What about Patrecia Scott? Are there any interviews featuring her? She appears exceptionally attractive based on the one photo I came across online.

No gestet,I was'nt in the inner circle, just one of many 'students of objectivism' (that was what we were supposed to call ourselves, by our leader Ayn Rand(lol) The NBI (Nathaniel Brandon Institute) gave a number of courses,usually moderated by Nathaniel Brandon, at the Atlantic Sheraton. Many of the people who were close to Rand gave lectures. Any Rand always attended & had a Q &A session at the end of the first lecture. She was usually accompanied by Frank O'Connor, her husband.

@Bill4Banco I wish more people came here like you, that's what made America a great nation. Now we have immigration with the aspiration of welfare and entitlement.

The music in the background is from the game Braid.

I believe it was Rand who first pointed this out: why should the definition of "human" necessarily be "fallible"? That is a rather ugly definition of human nature. That attitude unjustly excuses a multitude of corrupt practices. It is human nature to overcome, not to fail.

Reminds me of the Ken Burns "Civil War" documentary soundtrack.

Reading about the Brandens and Rand I come to the conclusion that Philosphy and Ideology do not grant common sense "Lo que natura no da, Salamanca no presta" "That which Nature does not give, Salamanca (famous university) does not lend"

My God , the music and her portrait in tiny black cubes the video starts with makes me for a moment live the passion of AR.... by the way , by god I meant Ayn Rand

I love what Ayn has shown me.

We have gone a long way in not recognizing ability and America is FAR the worse for it. My forefathers settled Virginia and Maryland in the 1600s...they were Scots and English Loyalists to Charles I and fled for their lives when he was murdered...one an Ambassador to Spain,,another a former court chaplain to Charles I,,another a Scots laird desended from Robert the Bruce and later Scots royalty. The Great American experiment is now so bastardized they would never recognize the place. I myself dont recognize public life in America...it is a foreign land I did not grow up in... all the people I admired are dead....so I choose to live abroad a stranger in a strange land BUT I am surrounded by many of my cohorts who still share my same values. When we ALL are dead what will,nefore of America...just another once noble fallen civiliztion...I too had a dream and it wasnt what exists today. When character and competnecy no longer matter a society is doomed to extinction...

fntime, may I suggest that you not fail to read "Who Is Ayn Rand?" by Nathaniel and Barbara Branden. Do you only read gossip, or have you bothered to read Rand's nonfiction work?

she sounded like a cult leader

Thank you. It was intended for you, gestet.

Philosopher, I hope my comment didn't seem like I was rebuking you. I was your age when I entered the world of Ayn Rand & Nathaniel Brandon....they had an extremely profound effect on my life, both good and bad. If you are interested in my slant on them and the pitfalls, please send my a note. Good luck, they are a good starting point.

She seems like a very lovely person.....

Deeply inspiring

She called herself a rationalist. But there's nothing rational whatsoever about denying the existence of the very God who made you rational, in His own image.

What is strange, wrong in the manner she is speaking and answering the questions? There seems to be something absurd about it.

@paulk314 Curious? What's your point? Paul, you're probably a 'giant' in your personal life, BUT, most of us, are multi-faceted, how about you?

"Stronger," eh? Hm.

@olga2415 I once attended a debate between Brandon and Albert Ellis, he represented the philosophy of the 'logical positivism'... it never took place because the 'objectivist contingent walked out, over some point I don't remember. Also, she is a wonderful writer, Atlas and Fountainhead, are brilliant & enjoyable.

I loathe the music here.

Philosopher, you are very wrong. I attended many classes at NBI in the mid 1960's. Not knocking Peikoff, but he was a relative of N Brandon and was a bit younger. His contributions were minor, a few articles & lectures, similar to Alan Greenspan. Rand had not much of a relation with him, until the break between Brandon & Rand 1968. You are commenting about things that you have no first hand knowledge, as a young person, I would recommend you don't acquire book knowledge only.

Very touching! Thank you so much!

Nice presentation

Ellitist got your self MANIFESTO. Good for you

No one who wishes to be taken seriously as a person of reason can discount the great contributions to the tradition of philosophy by Ayn Rand. If you agree with that statement, you have proven the value of collectivism and must burn your Ayn Rand Fan Club card immediately. Our brilliant sister, Ayn, had many more fears (phobias, as Barbara failed to properly name them) than mentioned in this clip. Her fear of personal poverty drove her pedestrian materialist ambition. Her fear of the Soviets drove her irrational generalizations about and denouncement of all forms of collectivism. Her fear of dogmatic hordes (such as the Soviets) fused with her other fears into a hatred of all religion, even those which value reason. Most of Ayn Rand's modern "followers" (a horde of dogmatists themselves I think she would disown) magnify the most obvious flaw in her personal philosophy, this being the phobic disdain for all things collectivist which negate her claim to true objectivism. You cannot claim to hold as a value the absolutist notion that no form of collectivism can benefit the individual and advance their well-being and potential of greatest self-realization. A social system that can balance the needs of the collective seamlessly with the rights of the individual is what Ayn Rand would probably be seeking had she lived to this day. Indeed, no form of collectivism makes any sense unless it meets the needs of each individual of the collective and the need for self-realization and achieving one's greatest potential lie chief among those needs. There is nothing inherently anti-self about collective concern for the well-being of one's own species, the other species with whom we share the biosphere, and the ecology that sustains us all. Had Ayn Rand survived to this day, I believe she would have reconciled her old phobias and worked to settle the fallacy of this long-standing false dichotomy in political thought. The bulk of those who profane Ayn Rand's work by calling themselves "objectivists" yet cling to the worst of Ayn Rand's ideas as if they were the best (the notion that NO amount of self-sacrifice is acceptable) do disservice not only to their greedy, self-worshiping, soon-to-be-worm-food selves, but to all that they truly are, which is an integral part of the whole of the cosmos. We are all one. Individual lives, led honorably, are significant and are worthy of great celebration, for without them, the whole of what we truly are is not merely incrementally diminished, but wholly intrinsically different, indeed ABSENT, without our role in it. Yet a sacrifice made by one of those honorably lived lives is not a sacrifice at all if it is done in the interest in the betterment of that collective whole. Our lives, because they are finite, must be valued as a whole, not a tally of fleeting joys over lingering misery, but in the sustained value they represent for all that comes after. This DOES include the degree of our own personal joys, but it is not dominated by it. No blind obedience to "states" nor numerical calculation of one's worth against the mere survival of a larger group of organisms is acceptable to a true objectivist, but to intentionally starve millions, to poison them, to intentionally hamper efforts to raise the intellectual and physical well-being of millions for mundane creature comforts like luxury or other trappings of wealth and power are not consistent with a rational and objective view of reality. They are the same sort of dogmatic blind worship of false values which Ayn Rand herself rejected. A person's highest personal ambitions must be greater than their own temporary ego stroking. No structure that exists with a person's name emblazoned upon it will have any value or meaning if we sacrifice our species for the sake of money and power-crazed egotists. A balance is easily found once an understanding of the fundamental nature of the oneness of all things is accomplished. Until it is, individuals stumble blindly through a series of fallacious arguments that pit self-interest AGAINST the interest of their society. No society truly IS a society if it does not exist to serve the interests of the individuals in that society...ALL of them. The "objectivist" charlatans (like Ryan Paul, who also claims to be "Catholic") voting to dismantle needed regulation of proven polluters and high finance con artists who attempt to justify their contempt for humanity by holding their pitiful individual brief existence above it all are not rationally observing reality at all. They are observing their own dicks (or clitorises) in their hands, mistaking their self-stimulation for true happiness, therefore virtue, therefore a higher ethic. Ask yourself ten seconds after climax if the effort was worth the payoff. Ask yourself if your brain is not biologically programmed by millions of years of evolution to think so. Ask yourself if any other ego-stroking pursuit is objectively a virtue, or does it just make you "feel good" in the moment. Ultimately, I fear Ayn was shamed for masturbating, and it led to a movement of cold-hearted reptiles re-purposing the otherwise promising fruits of brilliant thoughts centered on enlightened self-interest into a tool of self-defeating politics heavy on the self and light on the enlightened.

Her politics is excellent, her ethics is good, her metaphysics and epistemology are as good any any other, and better than most, but her novels are awful. The only thing good about her novels are the speeches her heroes make. But the fact that they need to make such long speeches shows her failure as a novelist. Though the speeches are excellent, they are are clumsily and artificially included in the stories. Also, her heroes and her villains are cartoonish. She's a good writer, but not of novels.

@noneofyourbusiness47 you addressed fntime but sent this to me.

fntime, were you one of the collective? If so, could you identify yourself.

I read her book about Ayn Rand, it was pretty good.

@olga2415 I always loved Reason magazine. Ronald Reagan often contributed articles, which at the time surprised me, because in the early 70's, I didn't look upon him as an intellectual. In the field of ethics, politics and defense of achievement & capitalism, she is the best. But there were many opinions, that she had, that she thought was truth! Objectivism to me, is not a philosophy.

I'm almost finished reading Ayn Rand and the World She Made by Anne C. Heller which is a fascinating & riveting biography. Rand's bouts of depression as well as her fits of manic rage when challenged with her philosophies are well documented in the book. Did you find her to be this way whenever challenged or disagreed with during any of the Q &A sessions at the end of the first lecture?

What is defined as virtues in humanism?.. Giving is a virtue... Caring is a virtue... understanding there is greater than one self is a virtue....Selfishness is not a virtue, and to say it is, is an utter lie and distortion.... Rand was lying about this..... Her view was a distortion of logic Ayn Rand is a crutch that people reach out to in order to feel good about being selfish. It allows and justifies the greed of such entities as the Koch Brothers, and the one percent wealthy to justify inequality, and their right to have so much, while so many have so few..... This is the most corrupt philosophy mankind can have for self destruction in moral decay, ethics, compassion, empathy, caring, love, and all the good that humanity entails.... The Capitalist system of Milton Friedman, and American politicians such as Paul Ryan, current United States speaker of the house, that have embraced this selfish system to justify their greed for the one percent wealthy mass... Only but a very few people in the world does well in this philosophy.... while the majority of the world suffers????? This is abhorrent... It is logically and systemically ridiculous on any level you care to argue as a functioning species for the majority to survive. The perpetuators of this idiotic selfish philosophy should be utterly ashamed of themselves for perpetuating it at all. The end result is counter productive to a harmonic world, and it creates chaos and revolution between the 99 percent and the one percent elites. That is factually being maneuvered in the world today as we speak.... Does not work!

Philosopher, 'none are so blind, as those who will not see'. Enjoy your delusions. You who never met any of these people, but read someone elses interpetation is better informed than people who were there. Good luck pal, you'll need it!

She was psycho

Classic cult leader. When you have no faith in God, then best to have supreme faith in yourself. By their fruits you will know them?

very cult like...libertarians getting in touch with their inner sociopath

The old Godless speed freak had a lot of selfish fans