But what if the source of much of your material in this essay on Ayn Rand’s life is itself inaccurate and untrue? Another author—James Valliant—who wrote on Ayn Rand’s life studied her private journals (that were unavailable to Barbara Branden and Nathaniel Brandon). According to him, the air of cultishness was initiated and encouraged by Nathaniel Brandon, who monitored all of Rand’s guests, visitors, and letters, to ensure that they were not antagonistic to Rand.
A single anecdote should throw enough light on Rand’s character to disprove this hypothesis. The libertarian economist Murray Rothbard was for a time part of Rand’s circle of friends. But when Rand learned that Rothbard’s wife was a Christian, she gave Rothbard six months to convert her to atheism, or else divorce her. Rothbard of course did neither, and was, accordingly, excommunicated soon thereafter.
I said, “If you’re genuinely selfish, then why do you want me to be selfish too? Doesn’t that make you concerned for my welfare? Shouldn’t you be trying to persuade me to be more altruistic, so you can exploit me?”
The objection you press against your interlocutor was anticipated by Max Stirner, the renowned champion of egoism, who replied as follows:
If your weal lay at my heart, I should act as the church did in withholding the Bible from the laity, or Christian governments, which make it a sacred duty for themselves to ‘protect the common people from bad books’. But not only not for your sake, not even for truth’s sake either do I speak out what I think. No —
I sing as the bird sings That on the bough alights; The song that from me springs Is pay that well requites
I sing because — I am a singer. But I use you for it because I — need ears.