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I never met Barbara Branden face to face, but I was an
occasional online acquaintance and correspondent of hers some years ago on
Objectivist e-list discussion groups first hosted by Jimmy Wales (later of
Wikipedia fame). Barbara was always gracious
and generous, sometimes answering my questions off-list. She died 11 December 2013 at age 84.
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I first encountered the writings of Barbara Branden and her then-husband,
Nathaniel Branden, in the late 1960s as colleagues of the great
novelist-philosopher Ayn Rand (1905-1982).
I discovered the world of Rand and her philosophy of Objectivism as a
17-year-old, and it was a clarion call for me to knock off my kid shit and get
some integrity. It is a philosophy
advocating rationality, ruthless intellectual honesty, passionate vision, individualism, liberty, and love of life.
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Rand was the solid star of Objectivism, and Barbara and
Nathaniel were the major planets in her orbit.
Rand’s work is on record; but Barbara’s was not as well known to many
outside the movement. Barbara wrote
Who Is Ayn Rand (1962), the biographical lead essay in the
volume by that name. This was greatly
enlarged upon later in her fine biography, The Passion of Ayn
Rand (1986).
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When I was in Vietnam in 1969, I asked my mother to send me
books. I specifically asked for Randian
periodicals, and she ordered and sent to me back copies of The
Objectivist Newsletter and its successor The
Objectivist. In these back
issues I read many of Barbara’s essays, movie and book reviews, and other
writings on philosophy and culture along with those of Rand and others. They recommended other philosophers' books, and thus started my wider philosophical education.
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Barbara was associated closely with Rand from 1950 until
1968, the year she (and Nathaniel) was disassociated completely from Rand due
to (as Nietzsche would say) “human, all too human” personal complications, natural in retrospect. Philosophically,
they were all in the same camp; they were all just a bit high-strung. Rand’s philosophy of Objectivism would never
have grown into such a well-articulated movement without the Brandens.
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At the dawn of the 1970s, the newly born American
libertarian movement was influenced as much by Rand as anyone else, and the
Brandens were in there personally on its early development. Libertarians that I know from online contact
and who knew Barbara for many years testify as to what a fine lady and
intellectual she was.
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I first ran into Barbara online around 1998 or so on Jimmy
Wales’s e-list, “Moderated Discussion of Objectivist Philosophy,” or its
successor Objectivist e-lists that he hosted on his servers and that were
moderated and run by his friends. We all
had questions about the early days of the philosophy’s development, and Barbara
was the one with the details and grand overview. It was wonderful to have her in the
forum.
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On these online forums I once defended Barbara from an
extremely crazy series of attacks from a weird female who called herself an Objectivist
and who ranted and raved against men, against certain kinds of libertarians,
and against Jews (and Barbara, like Rand, was of Jewish lineage). This same bitch has often appeared and
disappeared in Objectivist circles with equal nuttiness. She ranted against male circumcision and
talked about feminist street fighters kicking the shit out of men – or some such
raving. She was entertaining and
irritating at the same time, but her savaging and idiotic insults of everyone
on the list got tiring. And when she
focused personal attacks on Barbara, on her writing, and on her Jewish lineage, I
got righteously pissed off. I’m ugly
when I’m angry. I have a mean
streak you don't want to see.
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This was in winter of 2001 or 2002, and it was a Saturday
afternoon. My back was killing me from
shoveling snow, so I opened a bottle of whisky and did my internet browsing
between schoolwork tasks. Throughout the
day I worked off and on writing a post to answer that obnoxious bitch and to
defend Barbara. As the day went on (and
the bottle got emptier) I fashioned a reply, editing, re-editing, and cutting
it down to two short paragraphs of sheer poetic rant. I wish I still had a copy of that completed post, because it was one of the best I’ve ever written – a gem: rude, crude, mean, sarcastic, and with a nasty
personal aim, straight for the jugular.
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All I can remember about the gist of my rant was that it was
a mocking pseudo-veneration of the bitch, ending with something like: “Oh, Bitch! Enlighten us as we kneel at thy feet, oh,
thou dominatrix goddess! Oh! Favor us with lashes from thy whip!” (Or something close to that, but much, much
cruder.) I immediately got a private
email from Jimmy, who complimented me with:
“LOL. I haven’t seen a Grade-A
rant like that in years!” I became a bit
of a hero on the list for mocking the bitch so savagely. She became a laughingstock and soon faded
away. Good riddance.
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So my main acquaintance with Barbara Branden was to defend
her from a bully by my own crude, inebriated online rant. I’m selfish about my friends. She never mentioned that rant of mine, but
she was always exceptionally friendly to me in both on- and off-list
conversations from then on. I believe
she appreciated it even though it wasn’t in her style.
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Barbara kept tabs on many of us, even on those like me who
were marginal in her life. I was
surprised and very touched when I received a personal email from her in
2006. It was immediately after the Thai
military overthrew the government here in a coup, with tanks on the streets,
and front-page headlines throughout the world. She remembered that I had moved here and she
asked me with urgent concern if I was okay.
That is the way I will remember her – thoughtful, humane, and loyal.
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Many of us were surprised at her sudden passing. She had just sent out (on November 30) a mass
email to those on her huge contacts list, announcing that her book The
Passion of Ayn Rand was now available as an eBook. As a long-time dedicated Kindle user, she was excited, happy, and proud.
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Rest in Peace, Barbara.
You helped inspire a generation.
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-Zenwind.
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