Outside of her husband Frank O’Connor, and possibly even to a greater extent than he, there were no two people closer to Ayn Rand than Barbara and Nathaniel Branden.
Here they are, in separate interviews, discussing Rand, her ideas, and the movement they were a part of:
Barbara Branden:
Nathaniel Branden:
For me the most interesting part of the interviews was when Nathanial talks about the lack of any concept of redemption in Objectivist ethics. I’m not sure where that might lead someone, or even whether he’s right about it, but it does seem that Rand’s greatest failing was not so much the fact that she was morally judgmental but the fact that her theory of moral judgment left no room for someone who had done wrong to redeem themselves.
