"Holding Court"
by Barbara Branden
During my years with Ayn Rand, a pattern slowly developed that I found disconcerting. In the question periods following the Objectivist lectures that Nathaniel Branden and I had developed, and which Rand often attended in order personally to answer the many philosophical questions her fans wished to ask her, I observed that neither she nor Nathaniel ever responded to a query with the statement: "I don’t know the answer"—or "I’m not certain"—or "I need to think about it," or even "Here is one possibility, but there are others." However complex or esoteric the question, whether the area was metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, politics, or esthetics—or even history, current events, the theater, psychology, science, or literature—a detailed response was immediate. This, of course, seemed to me the result of the vast knowledge they possessed. It seemed to me quite wonderful. Until I grasped an implication that was not instantly apparent.
You see, Rand, when asked, as she often was, if there were real people who exemplified her philosophy, who lived up to its high ideals, would say proudly that she was one of them, and that Nathaniel Branden, Frank O’Connor, and Barbara Branden were three more. I felt proud of this, and embarrassed at the same time: proud of Rand’s high opinion of me, and embarrassed because I knew that she exaggerated the virtues she saw in me. I once joked to Nathaniel that in Rand’s view, she was God, Nathaniel was Jesus Christ, and I ... well, what was left for me was the role of ... well ... the Virgin Mary.
And I understood that I should not lag behind Rand and Nathaniel in omniscience. I, too, should be able to give a logical and complete response to any question with even the remotest connection to Objectivism. But I knew that I could not do so. I was learning a great deal in my years with Rand, learning through long conversations with her, through my university studies in philosophy, through omnivorous reading in many subjects related to Objectivism—but I was far from attaining her understanding of every issue that bore on her philosophy.
I could not fake it. I could not fake omniscience even at the risk of being less than an ideal exemplar of Objectivism. When I gave my own course of lectures on efficient thinking, or, in cities other than New York, Nathaniel’s course on the basic principles of Objectivism, I would of course sometimes be asked a question that I had not the faintest idea of how to answer, and I would say—not without a feeling of guilt—that I didn’t know the answer but that I would try to have it at next week’s lecture.
When I left New York in the winter of 1968, after ending my friendship with Rand, I realized something that was indeed wonderful. As I said to my companion, Robert Berole, while we drove across the country to our new home in Los Angeles: "I don’t have to know everything any longer! Ayn will never again say that I represent her philosophy. I can know what I know and understand what I understand—and not know a million things that I don’t know. What a relief!"
Why am I telling you this rather lengthy story? In order to say that, at the suggestion of James Kilbourne and the request of Lindsay Perigo, I am beginning a weekly column here on SOLOHQ of responses to the questions you would like to ask me. Because Lindsay refers to me, for reasons best known to him, as "Majesty," it was agreed that the column will be named "Holding Court."
Have I adequately covered myself? Is it clear to you that I will not be able to answer some of your questions because I will not know the answers?
Now let me suggest some of the categories of questions I hope you will submit. Among them, I will choose those that most interest me.
I am particularly interested in questions about how to relate Objectivism to one’s life. I don’t care how many angels may or may not be able to dance on the head of a pin; I care about the way we live our lives, the problems we face, the battles in which we engage and in which we triumph or fail, our struggles to enrich our lives personally, professionally, psychologically, and politically, our dealings with friend and foe and with the friends and foes in our own inner lives.
I shall be happy to respond to your questions about Ayn Rand to the extent that I am able to do so. I realize that Rand herself, as a mind and as a person, is legitimately a subject of great interest to her readers—as she is to me. Perhaps, sometimes, we shall struggle together to understand her.
I need to tell you that my responses may not always be consistent with Rand’s views, and when they are not, I shall say so and give my reasons for disagreeing with her. I call myself a "Neo-Objectivist"—meaning that I accept the fundamentals of Objectivism but not all of the principles that are said to flow from those fundamentals.
You may send your questions to me via Solo Mail.
I hope we shall all have a very good time indeed with "Holding Court." I certainly expect to, and I hope you will join me in what should be an interesting and enjoyable enterprise.
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