Editing Objectivist movement (section)

==Criticisms and responses==
===Criticisms===
Over the years, some critics have accused the Objectivist movement of being a [[cult]] or cult-like, and Rand of being a cult figure. The term 'Randroid' (a [[portmanteau]] of 'Rand' and '[[Android (robot)|android]]') has been used to evoke the image of "the [[John Galt|Galt]]-imitating robots produced by the cult".<ref>{{harvnb|Walker|1999|p=38}}</ref>

Suggestions of cult-like behavior by Objectivists began during the NBI days. With growing media coverage, articles began appearing that referred to the "Cult of Ayn Rand" and compared her to various religious leaders.<ref>{{harvnb|Gladstein|1999|pp=111–112}}. Gladstein cites articles titled "The Curious Cult of Ayn Rand", "The Cult of Ayn Rand", and "The Cult of Angry Ayn Rand", and comparisons of Rand to [[Joan of Arc]] and [[Aimee Semple McPherson]].</ref> [[Terry Teachout]] described NBI as "a quasi-cult which revolved around the adoration of Ayn Rand and her fictional heroes", one that "disintegrated" when Rand split with Nathaniel Branden.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Teachout |first=Terry |date=July 1986 |title=The Goddess That Failed |journal=Commentary |url=https://www.commentarymagazine.com/viewarticle.cfm/the-passion-of-ayn-rand--by-barbara-branden-7163}}</ref> In 1968, psychologist [[Albert Ellis]], in the wake of a public debate with Nathaniel Branden, published a book arguing that Objectivism was a religion, whose practices included "sexual Puritanism", "absolutism", "damning and condemning", and "deification" of Ayn Rand and her fictional heroes.<ref>{{cite book |title=Is Objectivism A Religion? |last=Ellis |first=Albert |author-link=Albert Ellis |location=New York |publisher=Lyle Stuart |year=1968}} Ellis did not employ the word "cult".</ref> In his memoirs, Nathaniel Branden said of The Collective and NBI that "there was a cultish aspect to our world [...] We were a group organized around a charismatic leader, whose members judged one another's character chiefly by loyalty to that leader and her ideas."<ref>{{cite book |last=Branden |first=Nathaniel |year=1989 |title=Judgment Day: My Years with Ayn Rand |location=Boston |publisher=Houghton Mifflin |page=[https://archive.org/details/judgmentdaymyyea00bran/page/256 256] |isbn=0-395-46107-3 |url=https://archive.org/details/judgmentdaymyyea00bran/page/256 }}</ref>

In 1972, libertarian author [[Murray Rothbard]] began privately circulating an essay on "The Sociology of the Ayn Rand Cult", in which he wrote:
{{blockquote|If the glaring inner contradictions of the [[Leninism|Leninist]] cults make them intriguing objects of study, still more so is the Ayn Rand cult&nbsp;... [f]or not only was the Rand cult explicitly atheist, anti-religious, and an extoller of Reason; it also promoted slavish dependence on the guru in the name of independence; adoration and obedience to the leader in the name of every person's individuality; and blind emotion and faith in the guru in the name of Reason.<ref name="Rothbard">{{cite web |first=Murray |last=Rothbard |author-link=Murray Rothbard |title=The Sociology of the Ayn Rand Cult |url=http://archive.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/rothbard23.html |access-date=May 31, 2009 |archive-date=December 2, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161202100419/http://archive.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/rothbard23.html |url-status=live}} Rothbard's essay was later revised and printed as a pamphlet by ''[[Liberty (libertarian magazine)|Liberty]]'' magazine in 1987, and by the Center for Libertarian Studies in 1990.</ref>}} Rothbard also wrote that "the guiding spirit of the Randian movement was not individual liberty ... but rather personal power for Ayn Rand and her leading disciples."<ref name="Rothbard"/>

In the 1990s, [[Michael Shermer]] argued that the Objectivist movement displayed characteristics of religious cults such as the veneration and inerrancy of the leader; hidden agendas; financial and/or sexual exploitation; and the beliefs that the movement provides absolute truth and absolute morality. Shermer maintained that certain aspects of Objectivist epistemology and ethics promoted cult-like behavior:
{{blockquote|[A]s soon as a group sets itself up to be the final moral arbiter of other people's actions, especially when its members believe they have discovered absolute standards of right and wrong, it is the beginning of the end of tolerance, and thus reason and rationality. It is this characteristic more than any other that makes a cult, a religion, a nation, or any other group, dangerous to individual freedom. Its absolutism was the biggest flaw in Ayn Rand's Objectivism, the unlikeliest cult in history.<ref>{{cite book |title=[[Why People Believe Weird Things]] |last=Shermer |first=Michael |author-link=Michael Shermer |chapter=The Unlikeliest Cult |year=1997 |publisher=W.H. Freeman and Company |location=New York |isbn=0-7167-3090-1}} This chapter is a revised version of {{cite journal |last=Shermer |first=Michael |author-link=Michael Shermer |title= The Unlikeliest Cult in History |journal=[[Skeptic (U.S. magazine)|Skeptic]] |volume=2 |issue=2 |pages=74–81 |year=1993}}</ref>}}

In 1999, Jeff Walker published ''The Ayn Rand Cult''. In one passage, Walker compared Objectivism to the [[Dianetics]] practices of [[Scientology]], which is considered by many to be a cult. Both, argues Walker, are totalist sets of beliefs that advocate "an ethics for the masses based on survival as a rational being." Walker continues, "Dianetics used reasoning somewhat similar to Rand's about the brain as a machine. [...] Both have a higher mind reprogramming the rest of the mind." Walker further notes that both philosophies claim to be based on science and logic.<ref>{{harvnb|Walker1999|p=274}}</ref> Walker's book has drawn criticism from Rand scholars. Chris Matthew Sciabarra criticized Walker's objectivity and scholarship.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Sciabarra |first=Chris Matthew |author-link=Chris Matthew Sciabarra |title=Books for Rand Studies |url=https://chrismatthewsciabarra.com/essays/cult.htm |journal=Full Context |volume=11 |issue=4 |date=March–April 1999 |pages=9–11 |access-date=June 22, 2006 |archive-date=October 26, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201026122939/https://chrismatthewsciabarra.com/essays/cult.htm |url-status=live}}</ref> [[Mimi Reisel Gladstein]] wrote that Walker's thesis is "questionable and often depends on innuendo, rather than logic."<ref>{{harvnb|Gladstein|1999|p=108}}.</ref> [[R. W. Bradford]] called it "merely annoying" for scholars.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Bradford |first=R.W. |journal=Liberty |volume=13 |issue=2 |title=Ayn Rant |date=February 1999 |url=http://www.libertysoft.com/liberty/reviews/70bradford2.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050211153421/http://www.libertysoft.com/liberty/reviews/70bradford2.html |archive-date=February 11, 2005}}</ref>

The claims of cultism have continued in more recent years. In 2004, [[Thomas Szasz]] wrote in support of Rothbard's 1972 essay,<ref>{{cite book |year=2004 |title=Faith in Freedom: Libertarian Principles and Psychiatric Practices |last=Szasz |first=Thomas |author-link=Thomas Szasz |pages=124–126 |location=New Brunswick, New Jersey |publisher=Transaction Books |isbn=0-7658-0244-9}}</ref> and in 2006, Albert Ellis published an updated edition of his 1968 book that included favorable references to Walker's.<ref>{{cite book |title=Are Capitalism, Objectivism, and Libertarianism Religions? Yes! |last=Ellis |first=Albert |location=Santa Barbara, California |publisher=Walden Three |year=2006 |isbn=1-4348-0885-8}}</ref> Similarly, [[Walter Block]], while expressing admiration for some of Rand's ideas and noting her strong influence on [[libertarianism]], described the Objectivist movement as "a tiny imploding cult".<ref>{{cite journal |last=Block |first=Walter |date=Summer 2000 |url=http://www.reasonpapers.com/pdf/26/rp_26_4.pdf |title=Libertarianism vs Objectivism; A Response to Peter Schwartz |journal=Reason Papers |issue=26 |page=60 |access-date=May 2, 2012 |archive-date=January 11, 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120111101657/http://www.reasonpapers.com/pdf/26/rp_26_4.pdf |url-status=live}}</ref>

===Responses===
Rand stated that "I am not a cult",<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-q7cje1I3VM|title=Ayn Rand Phil Donahue Part 5|website=[[YouTube]] |access-date=May 23, 2020|archive-date=February 21, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210221222151/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-q7cje1I3VM|url-status=live}}</ref> and said in 1961 that she did not want "blind followers".<ref>{{cite book |last=Rand |first=Ayn |title=[[Letters of Ayn Rand]] |editor-first=Michael S. |editor-last=Berliner |location=New York |publisher=Dutton |year=1995 |isbn=0-525-93946-6 |page=[https://archive.org/details/lettersofaynrand00rand_0/page/592 592]}} In a letter to Ida Macken (December 10, 1961), Rand wrote, "A ''blind follower'' is precisely what my philosophy condemns and what I reject. Objectivism is not a mystic cult." (emphasis in original)</ref> In the wake of NBI's collapse, she declared that she did not even want an organized movement.<ref>{{harvnb|Rand|1968a|p=471}} "I want, therefore, to make it emphatically clear that Objectivism is not an organized movement and is not to be regarded as such by anyone."</ref>

Jim Peron responded to Shermer, Rothbard and others with an argument that similarities to cults are superficial at best and charges of cultism directed at Objectivists are ''[[ad hominem]]'' attacks. Objectivism, he said, lacks layers of initiation, a hierarchy, obligation, cost or physical coercion:
{{blockquote|I cannot see how a disembodied philosophy can be a cult. I say Objectivism was disembodied because there was no Objectivist organization to join. The Nathaniel Branden Institute gave lectures, but had no membership. You could subscribe to a newsletter but you couldn't join. Objectivism was, and is, structureless. And without a structure there cannot be cult. [...] The vast majority of self-proclaimed Objectivists are people who read Rand's works and agreed with her. Most have never attended an Objectivist meeting nor subscribed to any Objectivist newsletter.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Peron |first=Jim |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20021014162005/http://www.zolatimes.com/V4.31/obj_cult4.html |url=http://www.zolatimes.com/V4.31/obj_cult4.html |title=Is Objectivism a Cult? Part 4: Understanding Cults |journal=The Laissez-Faire City Times |volume=4 |issue=31 |date=July 31, 2000 |access-date=July 29, 2009 |archive-date=October 14, 2002}}</ref>}}

In 2001, Rand's long-time associate Mary Ann Sures remarked:
{{blockquote|Some critics have tried to turn her certainty into a desire on her part to be an authority in the bad sense, and they accuse her of being dogmatic, of demanding unquestioning agreement and blind loyalty. They have tried, but none successfully, to make her into the leader of a cult, and followers of her philosophy into cultists who accept without thinking everything she says. This is a most unjust accusation; it's really perverse. ''Unquestioning agreement is precisely what Ayn Rand did not want.'' She wanted you to think and act independently, not to accept conclusions because she said so, but because you reached them by using your mind in an independent and firsthand manner.<ref>{{cite book |title=Facets of Ayn Rand |last1=Sures |first1=Mary Ann |last2=Sures |first2=Charles |location=Los Angeles |publisher=Ayn Rand Institute Press |year=2001 |isbn=0-9625336-5-3 |url=http://www.facetsofaynrand.com/ |name-list-style=amp |page=29 |access-date=May 31, 2009 |archive-date=March 16, 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090316094148/http://facetsofaynrand.com/ |url-status=live }} (emphasis in original)</ref>}}

Meanwhile, Shermer, who considers himself an admirer of Rand, has tempered his judgment. Contrasting Peikoff's "heavy-hammer approach" with the "big-tent approach" of The Atlas Society, Shermer told Ed Hudgins: "If we're close enough on the same page about many things, I think it's more useful to cut people some slack, rather than going after them on some smaller points. I don't see the advantage of saying, 'You shouldn't have liked that movie because ultimately, if you were an Objectivist, you wouldn't have.' I guess it was those sorts of judgments made by some Objectiv[ists] that I objected to."<ref name="shermertni">{{cite web |first=Edward |last=Hudgins |title=Interview with Michael Shermer |date=January–February 2007 |work=The New Individualist |publisher=The Objectivist Center |url=http://www.atlassociety.org/tni/tnis-interview-michael-shermer |access-date=April 29, 2014 |archive-date=April 30, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140430014819/http://www.atlassociety.org/tni/tnis-interview-michael-shermer |url-status=live}}</ref>