New at Reason: Objectivists Gone Wild

Tim Cavanaugh | February 1, 2005

Cathy Young takes a new look at Ayn Rand on her centennial. Non-fan Nick Gillespie admits to Rand's importance in the modern world. And from the collective unconscious comes a cavalcade of comedy, vituperation, and embarrassing encomia laid at Rand's feet over the ages.

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|2.1.05 @ 4:35PM|#

"Objectivists Gone Wild"

(shudder)

It will take me a while to wash that image from
my head . . .

|2.1.05 @ 4:40PM|#

Now lets begin a 42 comment thread on how stupid Rand is! I haven't seen one in a few days.

|2.1.05 @ 4:40PM|#

"Parasites who persistently avoid either purpose or reason perish as they should."

Holy crap! Man, whiff of the gas chamber indeed.

|2.1.05 @ 4:49PM|#

This is the only novel of ideas written by an American woman that I can recall...

Harriet Beecher Stowe anyone?

|2.1.05 @ 4:53PM|#

You'll never believe what these crazy objectivists do when we give them a camera and let them run wild in a hotel room!

"Give us the camera? Give? Are you suggesting that we're looters?"

"The decor is not sufficiently evocative of reason or glorifying of man."

"Make sure you have a few spare tapes for the camera. This speech was 80 pages when I typed it out in 10 point font single spaced, so when I read it to the camera it might take a while."

|2.1.05 @ 4:55PM|#

Almost forgot: When "Objectivists Gone Wild" went to the hotel room, you wouldn't believe what they did to the Gideon Bible!

|2.1.05 @ 5:01PM|#

Podraza,

You first. :)

|2.1.05 @ 5:05PM|#

...Rand wanted to provide liberal capitalism with a moral foundation...

Adam Smith already did that (as had many other authors).

|2.1.05 @ 5:14PM|#

It has been noted in this and other articles that all the randy sex in Atlas Shrugged created no progeny. This was not an unrealistic oversight by the author, but the result of editing by a publisher with misguided morals.

The soon to be published Unabridged and Uncencored Atlas Shrugged will have all the scenes of unrolling condoms that reveal a dollar sign that were removed.

|2.1.05 @ 5:16PM|#

NoStar,

Sarcasm? :)

|2.1.05 @ 5:16PM|#

Great essay by Cathy Young. A little more praiseworthy of Rand than I would be, but a pretty even-handed look at her work and influence nonetheless.

I've still got a copy of The Fountainhead on my bookshelf - flawed and self-parodic as it can be, it still has some decent passages, and makes for an interesting lens by which to look at Nietzsche's ideas. Had Rand not gotten so full of herself, Atlas Shrugged might have done the same for Hayek's ideas, but her incessant moralizing and one-dimensional character portraits makes it all but unreadable.

|2.1.05 @ 5:20PM|#

How many people here came to capitalism via Rand?

Eric II,

The irony of course is that Rand despised Nietzsche (indeed, aside from Aristotle and Victor Hugo, there are few historical figures that I know of that she liked).

|2.1.05 @ 5:22PM|#

Gary, Perhaps, but more likely an excuse to make one bad pun. All the rest is gravy.

|2.1.05 @ 5:27PM|#

The best way to read Rand is the way I did it. Backwards. Atlas first, Fountainhead second, Anthem third, and We the Living last.

It makes it seem as if she is becoming more human, not less. It also allowed me to disguarde the crap from the profound.

|2.1.05 @ 5:30PM|#

My mind couldn't decide between discard and disregard. That's my best excuse, especially since that was the rare time that I previewed.

|2.1.05 @ 5:31PM|#

There's big disconnect in my mind between Rand's novels and her later essays. Her novels are unreadable to me, with the exception of "Anthem".

But I love her later essays. My favorite writings from Ayn Rand are "Apollo 11" and an after-the-fact prelude to her novel "Anthem".
I'd have to trudge though the boxes in my garage to get it exactly right. In the "Anthem" prelude she says to the advocates of collectism who say "I didn't mean this.", "What else could you mean?"

|2.1.05 @ 5:37PM|#

joe: "'Parasites who persistently avoid either purpose or reason perish as they should.'

Holy crap! Man, whiff of the gas chamber indeed."

So if I tell someone that their habit of nervously chewing on live electrical wires is unhealthy, I'm wishing for them to be executed, joe?

Franklin Harris|2.1.05 @ 5:44PM|#

Speaking of Steve Ditko: I've long felt that from Ditko's point of view Spider-Man is a big joke played on the readers -- he's an example of what not to do. Spider-Man spends all of his time worrying about others, the whole "with great power comes great responsibility" thing. And what does Peter Parket get from it all? His life is a mess. He never has any money. He can't keep up with school. Flash Thompson kicks the crap out of him. And Aunt May is always at Death's Door with a nasty hangnail. Spider-Man is the flip-side of Objectivism: Be an altruist, and be miserable.

|2.1.05 @ 5:49PM|#

Franklin-
I never thought of that, but you're right! THAT would be an interesting bit of literary criticism.

|2.1.05 @ 6:04PM|#

I still say Rand was the fulfillment of Nietzsche's prophecy (and I'm not talking about the Superman, at least not directly--I'm talking about Nietzsche's predictions concerning a new ethical system apart from the old mores), not that either of them would have been too thrilled with the idea.

|2.1.05 @ 6:32PM|#

A man walks into a bar full of objectivist, and states loudly,"I want to buy the bar a round of drinks!"
The man is thrown out.

I was a budding Randian in my teenage years, but it quickily lost its glamour when I realized that objectivists have a fun factor of freakin-zero.

|2.1.05 @ 6:38PM|#

I should market those Capitali$t Condom$. They would be a hit with working girls and the Objectivists who buy their services. Talk about providing a moral framework for sexual relations!

|2.1.05 @ 6:40PM|#

I'm 18 now, and whne I was 17 I found my Ayn Rand in MIlton Friedman and Free To Choose. I never read Atlas Shrugged or Fountainhead, but if I saw peers reading it, I would point out that it had something to do with libertarianism.

I guess I should pick up one of her books, but I just love me some nonfiction.

|2.1.05 @ 6:55PM|#

Maybe we could summarize Ayn Rand by saying that she had some good ideas but she could get kind of crazy.

|2.1.05 @ 7:09PM|#

"I still say Rand was the fulfillment of Nietzsche's prophecy (and I'm not talking about the Superman, at least not directly--I'm talking about Nietzsche's predictions concerning a new ethical system apart from the old mores), not that either of them would have been too thrilled with the idea."

Nietzsche also predicted that, before a new ethical system based on his values arrived, a crisis of religious faith ("God is dead") would lead to attempts to create replacements for traditional systems, attempts that would produce an era of widespread violence. And that each would fail because they still relied on the notion of "thou shalt", of adherence to rigid, irrational dogma on the parts of all followers.

I think Communism and Islamism fit this description much more neatly than Objectivism, though parallels can be made with the latter as well. There might be some similarities between Objectivism and Nietzsche's value system in terms of content, but in terms of form, Hermann Hesse's worldview comes a lot closer than Rand's. Even if Nietzsche would've disliked the ascetic overtones in some of Hesse's work.

|2.1.05 @ 7:15PM|#

Lowdog-

Similar trajectory here. I read Fountainhead in high school because the Ayn Rand Institute was offering a prize for a good essay on it. I didn't know anything at all about her, but I needed $ for college. Unfortunately, I didn't finish the book in time to put together a good essay, so I didn't even enter.

I tried reading Atlas Shrugged several years later. I stopped reading half way through because I already got her point. I didn't really buy it, but I knew what she was saying, and the story was dull.

My path to libertarianism started when Bill Clinton dropped bombs on the eve of impeachment. I stopped calling myself a Democrat because I didn't want to be associated with a guy who'd kill foreigners in a desperate bid to save his political career. A year later I campaigned for McCain. I still still leaning left, but I respected McCain. Even though I now disagree with McCain on a lot of stuff, I have a soft spot for him because he was the first non-Democrat that I supported.

What got me into libertarianism was when a friend persuaded me that drug prohibition was insane. (I probably just confirmed everybody's worst suspicions about me.) Then I started thinking about things and realized that there were a lot of other failed government programs out there that don't work and infringe civil liberties. And from there, well, the transformation was inevitable.

My formative years spent as a Democrat still leave their mark, in that I'm angrier about regulations that drive up the cost of living for the poor than I am about taxes on the rich, but I agree that the whole rotten edifice of big government stinks. My leftist beginning manifest only in my priorities, not my principles.

|2.1.05 @ 7:27PM|#

In response to Gary's comment: I don't think we, as libertarians (presumably), should look to Adam Smith's thought rather than Ayn Rand's as a moral basis for capitalism. Adam Smith was basically a utilitarian who only advocated capitalism as far as he thought it created a net benefit for the collective whole; this is why he thought there needed to be a large (at least, large to a libertarian) role for government in fixing the supposed "flaws" of the market: public education, welfare for the poorest of the poor, etc. So in other words, he had no commitment to individual rights. I think that Rand, for all her faults, still provides the best and most comprehensive ethical foundation for a libertarian political order. It's definitely good to criticize her for the places where she took her ideas way too far (as Young and other commenters have discussed), but overall she was an indispensable ally of classically liberal thought

|2.1.05 @ 7:29PM|#

Rand is what turned me into a libertarian. I had barely heard of the word before I had to read Atlas Shrugged and a number of her essays for a couple of college classes about 3 years ago. Atlas Shrugged wasn't perfect, but Galt's big speech was magical to me. I will always have a soft spot in my heart for Rand and Atlas Shrugged.

|2.1.05 @ 8:58PM|#

I'm basically with Ben. Always a soft spot. And I really do beleive capitalism is moral and not just because it works.

Eric II brings up Hesse. I was shocked when I read Demian. Now I had heard that Rand wasn't entirely original, but the similarities between Demian and say, Fransico D'Awhatever were pretty shocking to me. Hesse's "sense of life" as Rand would call it seemed very much like her own, even if intellectually they ultimately beleived very different things.

|2.1.05 @ 9:04PM|#

Crash,

Rand isn't indespensible. To be frank, people are generally far more interested in her personality than her ideas. I wouldn't look to Rand for the moral basis of anything.

Adam Smith was basically a utilitarian who only advocated capitalism as far as he thought it created a net benefit for the collective whole...

In the Theory of Moral Sentiments, Smith develops the doctrine of a beneficent order in nature, manifesting itself through the operation of the forces of external nature and the innate propensities implanted in man by nature .... [T]he essence of Smith�s doctrine is that Providence has so fashioned the constitution of external nature as to make its processes favourable to man, and has implanted ab initio in human nature such sentiments as would bring about, through their ordinary working, the happiness and welfare of mankind. Jacob Viner (1927) "Adam Smith and Laissez Faire", Journal of Political Economy Vol XXXV, pg. 216-17

Rand's thoughts are virtually the same as this except that its merely nature and not God which provided these qualities in man. Its why Rand despised the notion of evolution; random and lacking "destiny," its a theory which ran against her romantic notions of man's nature and pedigree. Given the choice between one form of mysticism or another I choose neither.

I think that Rand, for all her faults, still provides the best and most comprehensive ethical foundation for a libertarian political order.

Hardly. I wouldn't be a libertarian if I had to depend on Rand's writings to be one. Indeed, the tenets of her philosophy - be it her epistomology, metaphysics, notions of the human mind, etc. - are so lacking in credibility that whatever she has to say about capitalism is lost in the wash of her crap.

Folks are always trying to "save" some portion of Randroidism. I say, why bother?

|2.1.05 @ 9:10PM|#

Ultimately its Rand's cult of personality, and not "her ideas," that makes Rand important to people.

|2.1.05 @ 9:12PM|#

I think it was interesting that Young discussed her notions of "feminism"; its right up there with the "all sex is rape" crowd. :)

|2.1.05 @ 9:28PM|#

A mighty warrior she was.

Many Liberjedi she taught well.

But beware the Dark Side you must!

|2.1.05 @ 9:37PM|#

Can anybody point me to where Rand criticized evolution? I want to know whether her attitude could be summed up as "That can't be right because it contradicts my prejudices" or as "Well, if it's right it's right, but it's kind of sad."

I think a moral defense of capitalism is a great thing. But when somebody claims that she (or he) can derive from strict dictates on life, the universe, and everything from ANY political theory, well, I think the word you're looking for is "Snake Oil Saleswoman".

|2.1.05 @ 9:40PM|#

When I was in College, I lived on a dorm hallway with several "Randists" on it. I read tyhe books earlier, but never really got "into" them before. Most of the "Objectists" on campus in those days professed it just to annoy the three genuine Marxists that sheltered in the Philosophy department's cottage. (It was a pretty conservative college by the stanrds of the 60' and 70's. They proudly had ROTC right through the Vietnam-era.) What you couldn't be on-campus was "gay".

As a gay, Hamiltonian Republican there was something about Rand that struck me as virulently homophobic that after 20+ years I can't remember. That, and the anarchist-types that were politically attracted to "Liberatrianism" at the time, repulsed any further dalliances with Rand. Unfortunatly, I can't remember what it was about Rand that was homophobic. But it was as impalatable as the "Christian" homophobia of the "Moral Majority"-types who commandeered the Young Repubican Club on-campus.

|2.1.05 @ 9:47PM|#

I just hope all this "rah rah Rand" hoopla dies down before it overshadows the celebration of Ned Beatty's birthday (July 6).

|2.1.05 @ 10:32PM|#

"As a gay, Hamiltonian Republican there was something about Rand that struck me as virulently homophobic that after 20+ years I can't remember."

I remember reading a comment from Rand a while back in which she denounced homosexuality as "irrational", or something else along those lines. Though oddly enough, a disproportionate share of the Objectivists that I've come across have happened to be gay. Maybe it had something to do with Rand's veneration of men relative to women. Or maybe it was the Greek influence. I couldn't really say.

|2.1.05 @ 11:06PM|#

Ultimately its Rand's cult of personality, and not "her ideas," that makes Rand important to people.

I guess I can't let this go unchallenged. I think it's the other way around -- Rand makes some good arguments, which allows most of her admirers to overlook her whacky personality.

|2.1.05 @ 11:30PM|#

I was put off reading Rand in my high school and early college days due to her atheism. I was raised to be a good Catholic boy, and the admonishments of Bill Buckley and the NR crowd to stay away from the dangerous woman's work were telling. I kept running into libertarian ideas from other authors, and some folks I knew at college were fond of her. When I grew frustrated with the Republicans and "conservatism" after the `76 presidential election, I decided to investigate libertarianism. I only read Rand after I had already made my switch.

While Rand's philosophical scheme does have holes in it, it was one of the first places I ever encountered an atheism that wasn't wedded to collectivist politics. That one could be an individualist, an atheist, have a non-mystical ethics and adhere to political liberalism (libertarianism) was an intriguing alternative to Marxism or Christianity.

If I were trying to convince a friend of the value of libertarianism, I sure wouldn't hand them a copy of Atlas Shrugged. Friedman, Hayek, Charles Murray, or Reason would be better choices. That doesn't mean that I didn't enjoy Rand. Reading those novels, and, later, many of her essays, was indeed an affirmation about how I had begun to see the universe.

I always thought the fascism charge was bogus. The Rand hero doesn't go out of his way to destroy those who don't live up to The Code. He just ignores them, letting the universe reduce them to whatever circumnstances result. It's the harsh side of "live and let live."

Funny how I got much better grades in philosphy after reading Rand, though. I even managed to ace a theology course taught by a Jesuit without once making a positive statement about the existence of god(s).

Kevin

|2.1.05 @ 11:31PM|#

"Ultimately its Rand's cult of personality, and not "her ideas," that makes Rand important to people."

"I guess I can't let this go unchallenged. I think it's the other way around -- Rand makes some good arguments, which allows most of her admirers to overlook her whacky personality."

The first attitude marks her detractors. They'll focus on the source instead of having to confront what she said.

The latter attitude markers her followers. They'll cling to what was right in her message but ignore the warning signs in her personal life.

I prefer something in-between. Take what was right and toss out the rest, but don't act like there weren't some problems that needed to be dealt with.

|2.1.05 @ 11:32PM|#

That scene in 'Dirty Dancing' (the boy explains to one girl that he will not pay for an abortion for a girl he impregnated by throwing a copy of 'The Fountainhead' onto the bed) always annoyed me because it seemed to me a misrepresentation of Rand's views. I'm not familiar with Rand's thoughts on teen pregnancy and responsibility, but I always figured she would believe that since it took both people to create the child, it was the responsibility of both to take care of the child (whether taking care means bringing it to term or aborting it) Does anyone know?

chris|2.1.05 @ 11:35PM|#

Well, son of a bitch. It never fails to piss me off that Rand gets such a raw deal here.

Sure she was a little crazy, but I've never understood how her personal life had anything to do with the validity of her arguments. I could give less than a shit about the lady or her lovers, but I do love her books. I guess it helps that I pretty much agree with her philosophical viewpoints, though.

I started down the libertarian path in my early teens, but didn't get around to reading Rand until my mid-twenties. Enjoyment of her writing is certainly not due to any youthful indiscretion. I honestly enjoy the stories, the characters, and the long monologues.

Truth be told, I've always been of the mind that everything in life is binary, and that those who don't like Rand are just pussies that can't deal with it. Maybe I'm just as crazy as she was.

|2.1.05 @ 11:37PM|#

She would have been all for aborting the little piece of genetic feces. Hell, she might have offered to do it herself. Rand was vehemently pro-choice.

I'd have to do my reading, but if you wanted Objectivism to be truly objective... well, since we live in a nation where one can have an abortion at will, reason would dictate (at least in Rand's way of looking at things assuming she was being objective, which she wasn't on several occasions) that the man had no responsibility in raising the child because it was the woman's choice to carry it to term instead of having an abortion. The man has no say in the decision, and thus no responsibility.

But that's assuming this is a case where Objectivism is truly objective.

|2.1.05 @ 11:51PM|#

Thoreau,

As to Rand's stance on evolution, it was this that took some of the shine off her for me as well. While I can't remember specific writings, I can recall several times coming across things in her later essays that just didn't mesh with Darwinian evolution as I understood it. I was also being heavily influenced by Dawkins at the time, so I was likely a little hypersensitive to the friction. I also recall this being something that Braden criticized her for as well. Again, I don't have the exact material where I found this (years have passed), but I did find this Braden quote that gives a hint at her take on evolution.

"No doubt every thinker has to be understood, at least in part, in terms of what the thinker is reacting against, that is, the historical context in which the thinker's work begins. Ayn Rand was born in Russia: a mystical country in the very worst sense of the word, a country that never really passed through the Age of Reason or the Enlightenment in the way that Western Europe did. Ayn Rand herself was not only a relentless rationalist, she was profoundly secular, profoundly in love with this world, in a way that I personally can only applaud. Yet the problem is that she became very quick on the draw in response to anything that even had the superficial appearance of irrationalism, by which I mean, of anything that did not fit her particular understanding of "the reasonable."

With regard to science, this led to an odd kind of scientific conservatism, a suspicion of novelty, an indifference � this is only a slight exaggeration � to anything more recent than the work of Sir Isaac Newton. I remember being astonished to hear her say one day, "After all, the theory of evolution is only a hypothesis." I asked her, "You mean you seriously doubt that more complex life forms � including humans � evolved from less complex life forms?" She shrugged and responded, "I'm really not prepared to say," or words to that effect. I do not mean to imply that she wanted to substitute for the theory of evolution the religious belief that we are all God's creation; but there was definitely something about the concept of evolution that made her uncomfortable."
http://www.nathanielbranden.net/ayn/ayn03.html

|2.1.05 @ 11:57PM|#

Though her influence on me did fade, there was enough of use that I'd still put her on a top ten list of my intellectual influences.

That said, Fountain Head, boring. Read it once and at best may only read it once more in my lifetime. Atlas Shrugged, however, for all its flaws, holds a certain place for me that I have gone back to several times and will like do so again several times in the future. Certain comic books are the only fiction I've repeated more often.

|2.2.05 @ 12:40AM|#

Gary G,

"To be frank, people are generally far more interested in her personality than her ideas."

Speak for yourself. You can't see her ideas through her personality.

I'm in kevrob's camp.

"While Rand's philosophical scheme does have holes in it, it was one of the first places I ever encountered an atheism that wasn't wedded to collectivist politics."

That was highly inspiring for me as well, though I admit to spending several years sorting Rand's worthwhile ideas from Rand herself.

I did come to libertarianism through Rand (coupled with my fascination with history, from which I tempered some of Rand's ideas). Without Rand I'd very probably have stayed on the fence, an undecided RepubliCrat. And btw, I'd read Adam Smith before Rand and Smith just didn't get me in the libertarian camp. Rand did. Of course I had to read a lot after Rand to finish the job, but it took Rand to get me on the road.

|2.2.05 @ 12:50AM|#

Gary, the only people I've met who are as anti-Rand as you, were also collectivists. Most libertarians I know are something closer to being like Czar (who I agree with):

"Take what was right and toss out the rest, but don't act like there weren't some problems that needed to be dealt with."

I hear your arguments against Rand but have not gotten your angle yet....something still seems to be missing.

Or are you one of those people who got first hand experience with a herd of Wild Randroids true to The Faith?

That experience I've fortunately missed.

|2.2.05 @ 1:11AM|#

Gary, I appreciate your further detail into Smith's theory, but if anything you make the case for Smith as a theorist look weaker, as it's not clear as to how we can know that this beneficient Providence really exists. What is "welfare"? That sounds like the product of a moral theory (that would supposedly define what welfare is and why we should care about it), not the foundation for one. Also, any theory that is based on the existence of God is unsound in my opinion, because then it's based on faith, not reason.
Rand's theory is based on undeniable aspects of human nature (that our ability to reason is the tool for our survival). Again, for all it's footing, this is much sounder than

|2.2.05 @ 1:15AM|#

Also, I think my point that Smith used essentially utilitarian reasoning to justify gov't social programs like education means that libertarians should be cautious about supporting him.

|2.2.05 @ 2:21AM|#

You know, I was just thinking about the difference between utilitarian and moral defenses of capitalism, and I would argue that the utilitarian arguments are moral arguments.

If one system creates nothing but misery (centrally planned economies) and the other creates far more opportunity and prosperity across the board, it really doesn't matter what you think about self-ownership and other libertarian principles. There's nothing moral about inflicting misery.

To look at choices somewhat less stark than communism vs. capitalism (say, varying degrees of regulation within societies that are still largely capitalist), there's nothing moral about ramping up the unemployment rate. There's nothing moral about making it impossible to build affordable housing. There's nothing moral about standing between a sick person and his or her medicine.

Honestly, if I couldn't find a consequentialist argument in favor of a libertarian proposal, I probably wouldn't support the proposal. I want to know how a decision will affect people. There's nothing noble about making policies that sound nice in theory without first contemplating real-world consequences.

Fortunately, the only cases that I can think of where there's a clear conflict between consequentialist considerations and libertarian theory seem to be the libertarian equivalents of "how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?" e.g. "If you're alone in the woods in the blizzard and there's an empty cabin with a locked door, is it OK to break in, wait out the storm, and leave some cash and a note when you leave?" Those who want to debate this are free to do so, of course, and they can of course refuse to associate with those who disagree on that question. But I'd prefer to make common cause over the fact that billions of people are suffering the consequences of regulation, rather than form divisions over the handful of people who encounter that cabin during a blizzard.

Anyway, while moral considerations are important, not everybody approaches morality from the same premises. But just about everybody agrees that prosperity is better than poverty. I'd rather focus on that.

|2.2.05 @ 3:43AM|#

I guess I'll do a serious post.

For me, it didn't begin with Ayn Rand. I first heard of her in high school (circa 1979), because of the dedication to her on Rush's 2112 album. But I actually didn't read anything by her until after college.

I came to libertarianism by this route. I liked to read science fiction, which in high school led to reading the SF stories of Larry Niven, which led to reading the SF novel The Mote in God's Eye by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, which led to reading Pournelle's "There Will Be War" series of anthologies of military SF combined with essays on politics and science.

I found the essays in Pournelle's series to be more interesting than the stories, including an essay by David D. Friedman ("The Economics of War"). That led me to reading Friedman's The Machinery of Freedom: A Guide to a Radical Capitalism -- which I found very persuasive, although it took years before I became the full-fledged anarcho-capitalist that Friedman is.

Also around this time I became exposed to various libertarian literature I stumbled across in the public library -- REASON magazine, a certain little book by an author who took the pseudonym "John Galt" (I forget the title, but the cover featured a dollar bill with George Washington wearing 3-D glasses), and Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal by Ayn Rand. The most important thing I remember from that book of essays is Rand's idea that "wealth" is not some common natural resource -- wealth is always created by an individual, by the power of the mind. (Yes, oil for example is a natural resource -- but it was only a sticky goo until some person thought of ways to make use of it; that's what turned oil into wealth.)

Around this time I found books by Thomas Sowell and Walter E. Williams that pushed me into a libertarian direction too, but with a conservative leaning.

By this time I was in my 20s. It took about 10 more years before I tackled Atlas Shrugged. It took me six months to get halfway through it, then I stalled. A year later, I picked it up again and finished it. Then I read The Fountainhead. By this time I was already a hardcore libertarian. I thought Rand had a lot of good points, but I didn't buy all her ideas, because by then I had plenty of my own. Still, she added a lot to my opinions, and helped make it possible to be a libertarian without feeling defensive about it.

|2.2.05 @ 4:22AM|#

Well, he's assuming utilitarianism. If you're in a standard utilitarian framework (without the arguments that, say, because humans are envious and jealous I lose utility when you get richer), the arguments you just made don't work. They appeal to 'abstract sentiments'; the thing that makes them wrong is that implementing them may further some allegedly noble purpose, but actively increases misery. Capitalism works to make people relatively more comfortable, and won't throw them overboard to satisfy your abstract principles of "equality."

That said, I'm not wholly utilitarian. On the other hand, Rand's defense of capitalism has always felt slightly utilitarian to me. Not the part about "Why should I serve other people"; that's just straightforward. But she also argues that society works much better under capitalism; and, for that matter, that capitalism is good because it increases human happiness. In that sense, much of her foundation disappears if you lose the utilitarian arguments--I can still say "I don't feel like serving you," but I can't make a generalized argument about why the state should not-use-force against people. Or at least, it's much harder.

|2.2.05 @ 5:06AM|#

I read The Fountainhead when I was 15 after a friend told me that the novel saved her from suicide. I read Anthem and Atlas Shrugged when I was 16 and We the Living when I was 17. We the Living is my favorite Rand novel and I agree that it's the most human.

I never did the essay contests even though I'd read the novels (I finally finished the John Galt speech on an airplane when I was 18), because I'm not nearly as good at praising things in writing as I am at condemning them. When I was in high school, trying to adequately praise her work in an essay was a serious problem and when I was in college, working out how to turn the Atlas Shrugged essay contest into a valid critique of Rand's work seemed impossible.

Rand's works led me to question a number of things and also led me to libertarianism. They actually led me into a broader worldview by leading me to atheism (suddenly realizing how scary it was that I replaced God with Ayn Rand), and I really have to say that I think I'm better off for having read Rand, even if she is a bit of a nutjob.

Also, two tangental comments:
1. Another overlooked Rand-related quote comes from an episode of Futurama, where the people in the sewer are showing the main characters their library. Bender remarks "It's nothing but crumpled porno and Ayn Rand!" I like the link between Rand and porn and the statement that people would rather flush Atlas Shrugged than be caught reading it.

2. I actually wrote a short story in high school parodying Anthem (as well as A Separate Peace and a friend's story about a communist township where they manufacture Comrade Condoms) where the protagonist writes "Ego" on a bunch of condoms. :)

|2.2.05 @ 8:19AM|#

'...it is my ambition to say in ten sentences what others say in a book - what everyone else does not say in a book." === from Twilight of the Idols

Editorial advice that would have improved John Galt's speech, IMO.

|2.2.05 @ 8:22AM|#

Gary's comment about Rand's personality is absolutely ludicrous. I think I am in the liberatarian majority in that I read Atlas Shrugged, yet never gave two shits about Rand's personal life. Not until only very recently had I even heard about it, through Reason's incessant compulsion to diminish her contribution to the cause. You want to gripe about Rand, complain about the long passages of boring moralizing, don't bitch about her sex life.

|2.2.05 @ 8:40AM|#

Oddly enough, I am with Gunnels on this one. Rand is an important thinker, but in my estimation of modern philosophers, she falls well short of Adam Smith. With all due respect to the "reading 'xyz' changed my life" crowd, one's personal belief system is not a particularly good way to evaluate philosphers.

If I want to read a libertarian novel, I much prefer a breezy little Heinlein to Rand's often gassy prose. Of course, talking about Rand with libertarians is like talking about Jesus to fundamentalists.

|2.2.05 @ 8:56AM|#

Jose, for me Rand was an affirming voice, not my inspiration. Can't I appreciate her views without being labeled a wacko? Atlas Shrugged was impossibly hard reading for this thriller reader, and left me with no yearning for any more pages of her dull schtick. But the theme wasn't bad.

|2.2.05 @ 9:00AM|#

Eric II & Ted B.,

Everything that didn't fit into her neo-puritanical worldview was "irrational."

pragmatist,

What, pray reveal, are "her ideas?"

I note that everyone always makes grand statements about her ideas, but aside from being an advocate of capitalism, don't really know what those "ideas" are. If all Rand ever did "right" was to advocate the benefits of capitalism, then I would say that would make her rather pedestrian even for her own time.

Yes, I've experience Randroids in the flesh, if thats what you mean.

chris,

A "raw deal?" You mean we should all get on our knees and her worship her image?

Czar,

I've done nothing but discuss what she said; what her ideas were.

chthus,

Clearly she was a scientific illiterate.

|2.2.05 @ 9:04AM|#

If I had to depend on Rand to become a capitalist, I wouldn't have become one. Her praise of capitalism would simply be too infested with poorly worked out epistomology, neurology, etc., for me to get at any worthwhile kernal of thought in her work.

Now Hayek, though his historical analysis is somewhat flawed, is an author that could and di prove convincing.

|2.2.05 @ 9:05AM|#

SR,

"So if I tell someone that their habit of nervously chewing on live electrical wires is unhealthy, I'm wishing for them to be executed, joe?"

If you state that they "should" die, then yes.

|2.2.05 @ 9:31AM|#

Gary, are you suggesting that wheel was not invented by one person, one day? ;-)

I admire "The Fountainhead" the same way I admire top grade Soviet agit prop, like "Battleship Potemkin." If you can't get over the brutish intellectual bludgeoning, you're not going to appreciate the art. But if you can understand said manipulation and brutishness as part of the genre, it's really great art on its own terms.

Rand had some enormous flaws as a thinker, a writer, and a human being, but greatness is not measured by the absence of flaws.

'I always thought the fascism charge was bogus. The Rand hero doesn't go out of his way to destroy those who don't live up to The Code. He just ignores them, letting the universe reduce them to whatever circumnstances result. It's the harsh side of "live and let live."'

Communist saw the deaths of class enemies in work camps as the inevitable working of history, even as the method of the "cleansing" mirrored their preferred economic system of collective labor. Fascists saw the deaths of race enemies in work camps, death camps, and ditches in the country as the inevitable triumph of the strong race over the weak, even as their method of cleansing mirrored their preferred social system of a highly regimented military state enslaving and pillaging subhumans. It's not terribly surprising that an advocate of radical laissez faire economic and social systems would imagine neglect of and self-destruction by her hated class functioning as the agent by which her desired cleansing takes place.

I believe the Christian concept of "sin of omission" describes the method behind Rand's fascism.

Robbespierre started out as an enemy of the death penalty, and based his career on campaigning for the rights of man against an oppressive state.

|2.2.05 @ 9:52AM|#

I believe the Christian concept of "sin of omission" describes the method behind Rand's fascism. - joe

Hey, joe, get stuffed. People were put in real world work camps and concentration camps at gunpoint. Rand escaped from an entire empire turned into a giant work camp. Failing to extend a helping hand to those in trouble may be a "sin" under Christian theology, - and since when is it proper for our government to internalize the valies of relligions? - but in American political tradition one gets to choose when and to whom one gives charity. When the government makes such "gifts" mandatory, it negates charity, even makes a mockery of it. {c.f. the "gift certificates" in Atlas Shrugged.} Coerced "charity" has no positive moral value. This applies to tax-funded bureaucrats trying to "make a difference", BTW. Any "sinning" done in a Rand novel was fiction. To compare the promulgation of non-altruistic morality to the sacrifice of innocents in the real world is sick. In the Randiverse, a person can always get wise to the way the world works, and improve his lot. Leaving others to grapple with the universe isn't the same as trying to actively cleanse them from the earth.

One can actively support something, oppose it, or be neutral towards it. You reflexively adopt the trope, "if you aren't subsidizing something, you are trying to destroy it." Oddly, it is Rand who is takes the "moderate" public policy stance.

Kevin

|2.2.05 @ 9:53AM|#

You conveniently omit, joe, that the Communist and the Fascist actively placed people in those camps.

|2.2.05 @ 9:59AM|#

Please not, kevrob, the ideal future Rand describes in not one in which the less fortunate subsist comfortably on the freely-given charity of their "betters," but in which they die off or live miserably. As the author, she could have imagined any future she wanted, and the one she wanted has the "invisible hand" working as an historical agent to smash large parts of humanity - with a little help from the supermen. No, she was "neutral" about the debasement of her subhuman class, she actively cheerleaded for it.

Anyway, the purpose of "coerced charity" is not to save the souls of those from whom it is collected, but to provide resources with which the unfortunate can subsist.

Warren|2.2.05 @ 9:59AM|#

Cathy,
Congratulations on a great essay. I believe it's the best that I've read from you.

Also, congratulations to the Reasoniods posting on this thread. I was afraid it would be dominated by tired epithets and reductions. However, I find the discussion both relevant and thoughtful. (Except for Ultimately its Rand's cult of personality, and not "her ideas," that makes Rand important to people, That's just silly.)

Put me in the "It all started with Rand" camp.

|2.2.05 @ 10:00AM|#

You conveniently omit, SR, that the supermen actively carried out a campaign to impoverish and suppress the "looters." And a rather violent one at that.

|2.2.05 @ 10:38AM|#

One can separate Rand's insights from her lack of tolerance for other views. I did.

|2.2.05 @ 11:04AM|#

For me it began not with Rand but with Robert Ringer's book, "Restoring The American Dream." I read and enjoyed "Atlas" and "Fountainhead" later, but by then it was more of a case of having my views confirmed.

|2.2.05 @ 11:49AM|#

Rand was the first writer who provided me with the intellectual justification for libertarianism and who got me excited about philosophy (and I was introduced to Rand 5 years ago when I was 25 years old, not when I was in high school like many people). While Objectivism is not 100% perfect, it provides an excellent intellectual justification for much (but not all) about libertarianism, capitalism, and individualism. Her writings further inspired me to discover Reason magazine and this website, which has led me to read Hayek and Paine, to appreciate the arts, sciences, and literature, and to consider myself a libertarian and appreciate the brilliance of the libertarian bent of "South Park".

That doesn't mean that I'm going to justify rough sex and rape. But it does mean that as Cathy Young points out in her essay, Rand has had a signficant and positive contribution to the cause of individual liberty for many people. To that end, I owe a personal debt of intellectual thanks to Ayn Rand.

|2.2.05 @ 12:35PM|#

So let's get this straight, joe: If I own a bakery in a small town and decide to close it down (for whatever reason), and as a by-product local people don't have access to bread any more, that is the total moral equivalent of rounding up the locals at gunpoint, herding them into camps, and letting them starve to death?

|2.2.05 @ 12:37PM|#

That Ayn Rand's messed up personal life is attacked by her detractors, rather than her ideas directly, is Rand's own fault. She opened the door to and validated such attacks when she proclaimed herself, her husband, and the Brandens to be the perfect embodiment of her philosophy.

Somehow I am reminded of this story:

A man was selling apples that he claimed tasted just like pussy. A customer bought one and immediately spit it out.
"This doesn't taste like pussy, it tastes like shit!"
The fruit seller looked at the apple in the customers hand and said, "No wonder. You took too big of a bite."

I expect that Ayn, like her philosphy tasted better if you didn't take too big of a bite.

Which leads me to an important question: Do Objectivists eat pussy? Did Dagny do blowjobs?

|2.2.05 @ 12:40PM|#

I was a high school liberal. You know, the kind that thinks intense conversations about the evils of capitalism will somehow cause the world to magically change, who believes deeply in 'Think globally, act locally'. I was more liberal than joe, even; I was a liberal on the level of the DU nutjobs. Hey, I was 16, ok?

Then I read Rand.

Today, I find her nonfiction prose almost unreadable, and haven't had any urge to reread Fountainhead or AS in years. Reading 'Judgement Day' clarified a lot of fundamental problems I had with Objectivism (like, what's up with her freaky attitudes towards sex?). And I've rejected the label 'objectivist' because of the exploding sack of insane crap that is Leonard Peikoff.

And these days I find my views diverging from Rand's in many areas; my practical experience with trying to make a living in modern America suggests that you can't, in fact, live life according to a strict set of Randian moral precepts. I encourage friends to take jobs they won't like, because some job is better than no job. I do things that aren't 'productive' because, uh, they're fun. And despite Rand's admonishments I both vote Libertarian and occasionally alter my state of consciousness.

But despite all that, my hat's off to Rand: she was the only author that actually made me *think* about my assumptions, instead of just *reacting*. For me, that was the major step from liberalism to a more considered and reasoned libertarianism -- that I took the time to *think* about things, and stopped just emoting.

(As for her personal life: who cares? I'm reading the text, not inviting the woman to live in my spare bedroom. Yeah, she was a nutjob with a bad speed addiction. That doesn't change the text-as-artifact. Postmodernist? Sure, but I never claimed perfection.)

hunting girl|2.2.05 @ 12:50PM|#

Which leads me to an important question: Do Objectivists eat pussy? Did Dagny do blowjobs?

NoStar,

To quote from Atlas,
"She wore slacks or cotton summer dresses, yet she was never so feminine as when she stood beside him, sagging in his arms, abandoning herself to anything he wished, in open acknowledgment of his power to reduce her to helplessness by the pleasure he had the power to give her. He taught her every manner of sensuality he could invent. 'Isn't it wonderful that our bodies can give us so much pleasure?' he said..."

My answer to your question: hell yeah! :)

|2.2.05 @ 12:57PM|#

"(I finally finished the John Galt speech on an airplane when I was 18)"

and telemachus sneezed...

|2.2.05 @ 12:58PM|#

Hunting girl,
I'm still not sure if Rand thought it moral for an Objectivist male to worship at the alter of the female pudenda.

btw: are you a girl who likes to hunt or a male like me who is hunting girl?

PS: I don't believe in catch and release. I believe in eating what I catch.

hunting girl|2.2.05 @ 1:15PM|#

NoStar,
The former. refer to my link :)

|2.2.05 @ 1:29PM|#

HG, that beats the hell out of Aqualung.

|2.2.05 @ 1:33PM|#

Hey, I resent that!

|2.2.05 @ 1:52PM|#

Robert Ringer's "Looking Out For #1" was way more enjoyable reading than Rand's AS. I wonder if Chamber's gas chamber sentiment applied to Ringer too. He basically advised us to avoid people who would use us for their own purposes. Is this much different than Rand?

|2.2.05 @ 3:05PM|#

I'm not a Randoid in the sense that I agree with everything she said. In fact, I have several major disagreements with her on the nature of man, especially when it comes to things like her a priori take on Aristotle's notion of tabula rasa, where I tend to agree with Stephen Pinker. Nevertheless, The Fountainhead is my favorite book. Many of you may not agree with me, but to each his own. This thing I want to discuss is not the merits of the book or the author but a specific part of the book that has puzzled me for a long time.

A few years ago I loaned a copy to a girlfriend. After she had finished the book I told her that the only thing I couldn't understand was the rape scene. To my surprise, her response was, "He didn't rape her." Now, this will take quite a bit of explaining, so I hope you'll bear with me long enough to appreciate the argument without dismissing it out of hand.

Dominique is a character who despises most of the world because it damns everything she thinks is great. Her response to that is to do her level best to not to find greatness in anything, not to care for anything or anyone, because she thinks it's inevitable that those things will be taken from her. Her great character flaw is that she cares too much about what other people think and do, and spends an inordinate amount of time trying to prove to herself that she really doesn't. So along comes Roark, and she finds herself attracted to him despite her best efforts to see him as just another quarry worker. She doesn't WANT to want him, but she can't help that fact that she's very attracted to him because she sees in him the way the world could be and should be. (You can disagree with that appraisal of Roark if you wish, but nevertheless, it's true for the character of Dominique.) One of the reasons she breaks the fireplace marble is to prove to herself that what she sees in the guy isn't really there. She figures he'll come over and take the piece out and she'll see that he really is just another quarry worker and life can get back to normal. If he's NOT just another quarry worker, her whole world has just taken a turn for the worse because she's working with two conflicting premises (she loves great things, but she can't stand for great things to be trampled on by the rest of the world) which are only in conflict once she actually desires something. This is why she smashes the statue when her character is introduced.

Now, you can argue all day about whether's she's crazy or whether Roark is really so wonderful or whether anyone should care at all, that's not the point. From the perspective of the character Dominique, the premises are valid.

So Roark comes and takes out the stone, Dominique realizes she can't think of him as just some normal guy, and then Roark intentionally sends another worker over to set the new stone. He's intentionally not playing her game. He knows she's in denial about her attraction to him, so he makes a point of showing her she's wrong by sending the other guy in his place. Her reaction is disappointment that he didn't come, acknowledgement that he did it intentionally and why, and an increased desire for him.

Next we have the rape scene, and here's the bit my girlfriend pointed out to me that I hadn't really appreciated before. Howard shows up and basically has his way with Dominique, and she WANTS him to. What she's fighting in that scene is not Howard, it's herself. She's fighting her desire for him. I don't have my copy of the book here, so I can't present any supporting quotes, but if you read the scene carefully you'll find Dominique wanting to push him away with arms that couldn't move, or something to that effect. You can either read that as "he's restraining her" (as I always had, and I think most people do), or as a fierce internal battle which she's losing because she's giving in to a desire which she knows will change her life forever; the reason she can't push him away is that she can't summon up the mental strength to make herself want to anymore.

If this is true, then this is not a rape scene in the normal sense. It's not exactly consensual sex either though. It boils down to Dominique wanting him to have his way her, but not wanting to admit to herself that she wanted him to.

Now, I know a lot of you find these characters to be one-dimensional and boring, and that's fine. Take from the book, or not, as you please. I would like to hear a few comments along the lines of "you're absolutely right and think about this too" or "you're absolutely wrong and don't forget about that as well," but please keep the "you're an idiot" comments to a minimum. I may well be an idiot, but that's another topic.

|2.2.05 @ 3:09PM|#

SR, I don't believe Rand's "Atlas Shrugged" revolution to be the equivalent of closing a bakery and going about your business.

I also recall that most of what Marx recommended involved the withering away of the state, and leaving people alone to do and organize as they please. Political theories that divide the world into producers/workers/productive cultures on the one hand, and parasites/parasites/parasites on the other, are to shunned like foaming dogs.

|2.2.05 @ 3:56PM|#

Minor Threat,

Nice analysis of the scene. I would agree with most of your conclusions, except your claim that the act was "not exactly consensual." Actually, based on years of contemplation of Dominique's character, I have to conclude that that would be the only way she (and other women psychologically similar to herself) would want to be taken.

And to quote Ayn Rand (from 'Letters of Ayn Rand'):

"But the fact is that Roark did not actually rape Dominique; she had asked for it, and he knew that she wanted it. A man who would force himself on a woman against her wishes would be committing a dreadful crime. What Dominique liked about Roark was the fact that he took the responsibility for their romance and for his own actions. Most men nowadays, like Peter Keating, expect to seduce a woman, or rather they let her seduce them and thus shift the responsibility to her. That is what a truly feminine woman would despise. The lesson in the Roark-Dominique romance is one of spiritual strength and self-confidence, not of physical violence."

I found it interesting to learn that, in her own life, Rand *always* had to initiate intimacy with her husband. As far as I'm concerned, that neglect helps to explain why, in her fiction, her heroines are *always* the ones being *pursued*...

|2.2.05 @ 4:04PM|#

And if you want a laugh, check out J. Morton Spindle's spoof, the "Benevolent Rape Scene" --
http://www.dailyobjectivist.com/Connect/BenevolentScene.asp
-- some of it bad parody, a couple of passages hilarious...

|2.2.05 @ 4:24PM|#

IIRC, the strike in Atlas Shrugged involved pirates sinking ships.

Sure, the ships were carrying foreigner aid bought with tax dollars, but still.

|2.2.05 @ 4:33PM|#

The reason I said it wasn't exactly consensual is that even if Dominique wanted Roark to take her that way, there's still a part of her that isn't consenting: she still doesn't want her world to change. By the time she makes it back to New York herself she has nearly convinced herself that her attraction to Roark (whose name she doesn't even know at the time) was just a fluke, a moment of weakness, so to speak. I don't think she really knows how desperately she loves him until she bumps into him at the party later on. So, it's not "exactly" consensual in the sense that a part of her doesn't want to be involved with any man at all.

By contrast, from personal experience, I can say I've absolutely wanted every woman I've ever slept with. Well, there was that one time when I'd had too much to drink...

pococurante|2.2.05 @ 4:47PM|#

I'm trying to think of other sightings, besides "Dirty Dancing", of Rand books on film. The only one I can come up with is "Singles" and its much more sympathetic (if you like vulnerable, which many Randites wouldn't) Janet character (Bridget Fonda). IIRC, she totes The F'head around everywhere -- to her cafe job, to tanning on her building's roof to help her get over Matt "Citizen Dick" Dillon (along with the phone just in case he does call -- O, irony). I'm not sure she ever starts reading it, much less finishes or partly digests it.

|2.2.05 @ 5:07PM|#

I'm not sure she ever starts reading it, much less finishes or partly digests it.

Nice. So one director (Dirty Dancing) makes The Fountainhead look bad by letting a feckless jerk tote it around. Then ANOTHER director (Singles) makes The Fountainhead look bad again by having a foolish, boycrazy girl carry it around....

Kevin Carson|2.2.05 @ 7:16PM|#

thoreau,

Rand's attempt to tie libertarian ethics to an over-arching philosophical system was incredibly ham-fisted. The only thing remotely comparable I can think of is the vulgar Marxist metaphysics and theory of science that came out of Engels' Dialectics of Nature.

What's worst of all is that modern-day 'droids reject all association with libertarians who don't derive their anti-government philosophy from what they consider a "consistent set of premises." Their approach, apparently, is "I agree with everything you say, but will fight to the death to prevent you from saying it."

Kevin Carson|2.2.05 @ 7:18PM|#

BTW, please tell me that these discussions of O'ism and cunnilingus don't apply in any way to Rand herself. Eeeyewwwwwww!

|2.2.05 @ 7:35PM|#

Kevin, It's like I always say about female Objectivists: If you can't join 'em, lick 'em.

|2.2.05 @ 10:28PM|#

Minor Threat --

Thanks for posting that analysis (or your girlfriend's analysis) of that scene from The Fountainhead. Not only does that help me understand the scene in the novel, it might possibly help me understand some of the puzzling and seemingly self-destructive behavior of someone I know in real life. Hmm.

|2.3.05 @ 12:15AM|#

As for other media appearances, Matt Feazell's Anti-Social Man has been spotted reading Shrugged.

Kevin

|2.3.05 @ 5:31PM|#

Why can't some people understand that it's possible for ideas and philosophies to be much closer to "perfect" than the personal lives of the people who think them up?

Rand sez: Doing stuff that harms your health is irrational. Yet... she smoked cigarettes, knowing they were unhealthy! Therefore her philosophy is flawed, and we should all just pick and choose the parts we like, even though it's an integrated whole!

I don't get it, guys.