Isn't Objectivism a cult?

Make no mistake: You're going to find a lot of folks who subscribe to an Ayn Rand cult of personality; these are people that can't separate Rand as a person from Objectivism as a philosophy. Frankly, I think these people do harm to the general impression of Objectivism because these guys tend to be the loudest and most visible out there. But they make it seem like we're more about the person than we are the ideas, which is why it's easy for folks to think we're just a cult that's all about Ayn Rand the person than Ayn Rand's philosophy.

It's funny because that cult mentality and behavior is absolutely antithetical to what Objectivism is about. I like to think that anyone claiming to be an Objectivist knows to think independently and question and justify everything they read before accepting it, from Rand to Yaron Brook to the comments on this site.

Virtually every movement which has a firm ideological position is charged with being cult-like by those who oppose it. Objectivism just has the disadvantage, in this regard, of having an important person admired as the originator of its principles. Additionally, serious disagreements such as the Open vs. Closed system debate are seen as petty by people who don't have or don't want to have the context to understand it. As others have pointed out, some people do follow Objectivism in a cult-like, uncritical manner. Many of them actually leave and project their misunderstanding onto other Objectivists. Others stay and give the philosophy a bad image.

All of these things do not negate the fact that Objectivism is a system of ideas which must be considered on its own merits. The actions of the people who claim to follow the philosophy do not necessarily reflect the validity of it. The cult smear is simply a means of avoiding honest intellectual argument.

When most people accuse Objectivism of being a cult, they're usually thinking of some definition of cult like this one from the Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition:

a quasi-religious organization using devious psychological techniques to gain and control adherents

According to that definition, Objectivism is clearly not a cult. Objectivism is explicitly atheist, and systematically attacks the very idea of religion and faith. There is also no evidence of "devious psychological techniques to gain and control adherents". The only prominent Objectivist organization (i.e., the organization which would perpetrate such acts), the Ayn Rand Institute, is primarily an educational institution whose main contact with its supporters is through a monthly newsletter. Apart from that, there are a number of campus clubs, community organizations, and academic groups which are each self-contained groups. There is no evidence of "devious psychological techniques" used by any of these organizations.

Ayn Rand and Objectivism stridently attack many of the basic moral, philosophical, and political ideas of our time. It is natural that people who hold those ideas will disagree, and wish to defend their own ideas. Some of those people do so by smearing Ayn Rand (this has been done many times), or Objectivism (also not uncommon), or the people who promote either (as in this case) with unfounded libel. As always, it is for the attackers to prove their assertions, not for the accused to prove it isn't so.

There are a number of problems common to the public spread of Objectivism that help create the impression of a cult. One of those problems is the fact that so many Objectivists have learned everything they know about philosophy from Objectivism, and are unable to put Rand's ideas into correct historical and ideological context. When people credit Rand with having discovered hierarchy or the inductive nature of concept-formation, for example, knowledgeable people recognize they do not know what they are talking about. Her fans seem to be blindly crediting Rand with ideas that are mainstays of western philosophy, to be hero-worshipping out of naivety. Along the same lines are the not uncommon mis-statements of tenets of Objectivism, and applications of it.

Objectivism is not a cult because it is entirely based on fact and reason. A cult functions through faith or allegiance to some person or icon, or even a single idea, taken as an absolute in itself. Philosophies, on the other hand, are systematic bodies of thought that address the real world. The same distinction between dogma and science applies between philosophy and a cult. This applies to erroneous philosophies as well to correct ones, in that they address real matters of the world and they use reason to develop and substantiate their ideas. This also means that religions are all cults, as they obviously do not even pretend to proceed by reason (hundreds of years ago, it was a different matter.) That an idea or a celebrity, etc., should attract fans of the cult-follower sort does not mean it or they are a cult. So, the way to answer the accusation that Objectivism is only a cult is first to clarify what is and isn't a cult, and then simply to show them the integrated, well-reasoned tenets of Objectivism.

It is worth noting that Dr. Peikoff's article, "Fact and Value," is, in the abstract, a lecture on what is and what is not a cult. The pressures of popular acceptance and offerings of a greater public presence had lured certain Objectivists into a pragmatic alliance with a faction that, on the surface, appeared to support Rand's system of thought, but, in a subtle, yet crucial way, did not. In his letter, Dr. Peikoff reminded us that no facts can be swept under the rug, and that no abstract value supercedes allegiance to facts. He roused people to value facts, and to--in fact--value. His article spoke to the root, personal sense of right that is what leads each person to pursue Objectivism in the first place. The cult faction that broke away did not wither and disappear, but it failed to flourish, failed to achieve, failed to advance. It is inevitable that that would happen. There is no flourishing without a full and healthy root system, and reason is the root system of Objectivism. Our failed culture is a polyglot of cults, as our political landscape is. It is unavoidable that a cult move pointlessly, with change aplenty, but no advance; with "sound and fury, signifying nothing."