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WHO IS JOHN GALT? 1957–1968
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Rand as a defense and vindication of her social position. Rand’s campus
speeches were a gateway into Objectivism for many. Her provocative
stance electrifi ed audiences and stood in contrast to the more prosaic,
measured presentation of ideas students normally heard. After Rand
spoke at the University of Virginia, one student said that her speech was
the fi rst thing “he’d gotten really excited about in three years in college.”
Interest in Rand was contagious. A female student at Brown University
was crossing campus when she “ran into a yelling, enthusiastic mob of
girls surrounding somebody.” The cause of the excitement was Rand,
fresh off her speech “The Intellectual Bankruptcy of Our Age.” Curious,
the student began reading Rand and over summer vacation brought her
two brothers into the fold. 21
Rand’s student followers were drawn to her because she offered an
attractive alternative to the mainstream intellectual and political culture
of the 1960s. Rand was a system builder in the old style, an unabashed
moralist, an ideologue, and an idealist. Objectivism contrasted sharply
with the dominant ideas in universities, where most intellectuals had
become skeptical of claims to objective truth, preferring to emphasize
multiple perspectives, subjectivity, and the conditioned nature of reality.
They were, as Rand put it, “opposed to principles on principle.”
Philosophy had become insular and esoteric, with mathematical discussions
of logic and linguistics dominating professional discourse. By
contrast, Rand wrote in a casual style and addressed the ethics of everyday
life, the conundrums of money, sex, work, and politics. 22 Her ideas
spoke powerfully to students who hoped that in college they would
study the great questions of existence, and instead found their idealism
stifl ed by a climate of skepticism and moral relativity. As one Objectivist
remembered, “I thought that philosophy and psychology held the key to
understanding the ‘meaning of life.’ When I took those courses, I found
myself studying instead the meaning of words and the behavior of rats
in mazes.” 23 Objectivism fi lled in the gaps universities left unattended.
Another student outlined myriad complaints in a letter to Rand. He
was particularly bothered by a pervasive cynicism in the two universities
he had attended: “Anyone who seeks, or makes a statement on, truth
and/or beauty is (a) ignored, (b) the recipient of a vague, benevolent
smile, (c) scorned, (d) politely laughed at and called ‘unsophisticated,’
or (e) treated as a refugee from some quaint spot, which, fortunately,
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