Reason.tv Event: The Enduring Power of Ayn Rand's Ideas

Featuring Nick Gillespie, Katherine Mangu-Ward, Veronique de Rugy, and Patrick Reasonover

[If you have trouble with the embedded video above, go directly to Reason.tv]

On November 2, Reason celebrated the launch of Reason.tv's 10-part series on Ayn Rand's influence and reach in contemporary America with a rollicking panel discussion in our Washington, D.C., office.

Among the speakers:

Nick Gillespie, editor in chief, Reason.com and Reason.tv, discussing Rand's place in popular culture.

Katherine Mangu-Ward, Reason senior editor, asking "WWRD" (what would Rand do) when it comes to contemporary politics.

Veronique de Rugy, Mercatus Center economist and Reason columnist, analyzing the impact of Rand on libertarians in Europe.

Patrick Reasonover, Duncan Scott Productions, discussing the release of a new, specially restored DVD edition of the 1942 Italian production of Rand's We the Living.

This video includes a showing of a special trailer for We the Living and is followed by a lively audience Q&A session. Approximately 40 minutes. Shot and edited by Meredith Bragg.

Go here for embed code and downloadable audio and full-video versions.

This segment concludes the Radicals series, which includes interviews with Reason Foundation co-founder Bob Poole, author Barbara Branden, psychologist Nathaniel Branden, and many more.

Watch or download the whole series at Reason.tv or YouTube. For an archive of classic and recent Reason stories on Rand, including staff reviews of two new critical biographies of the author of Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead, go here.

Comments

[Lester Hunt]

Is that guy's name really "Reasonover"? Cool!

[John]

Then there is DeRuby and Mangu-Ward. Apparently you have to have a catchy, hip name to work at Reason.

[John Galt]

If your last name was originally Mangu, you'd have to be retarded not to drop it after getting married to someone who has a normal name, such as Ward. After reading another one of Mangoo's articles, I do believe she is in fact a retard

[Pro Libertate]

So who is this Rand person? Does she have something to do with libertarianism? Please, tell me more.

[John]

I think she was a Hollywood writer of some sort. Wrote a couple of screenplays back in the 1940s.

[John Galt]

nope, Ayn Rand has nothing to do whatsoever with Libertarianism

http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexi.....rians.html

[Winsor Beano]

Sounds to me like this guy might actually have some good ideas.

Jess
http://www.ultimate-privacy.cz.tc

[ev]

Broken imbed is broken.

[anon]

Ayn Rand is to libertarianism what Milli Vanilli is to music.

[icl]

Modern Libertarianism to Ayn Rand is what Sunjaya is to music.

[John Galt]

http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexi.....rians.html

[John]

Mangu Ward is the thinking man's Kerry Howley. The Mary Anne to Howley's Ginger.

I could kis and lick Howley's ginger all the day long.

[Nick Gillespie]

Broken embed now working! At least for the moment!

[@moverjason]

I was in Washington DC on November 2nd. Staying near Dupont Circle no less. I wish I'd known about this.

[brec]

"Her 1958 novel, Atlas Shrugged..."

1957

[freeman]

I wanna invite to that party!

...Mangu-Ward looks like she might be wearing a wedding ring. Damnit.

[mountainaires]

Ayn Rand is quite relevant, and not at all evil; she's just a product of her own experience. Let's face it, if you endured the suffering and sacrifice she endured in Russia, you'd be screaming for Gordon Gekko's resurrection too. Give it a rest. Ayn Rand was a great writer, and a great philosopher and we should revere her courage in this country. But she is a product of her own era, and no more or less timeless, right, wrong, than any other historical figure. She doesn't deserve cult status and any intelligent person wouldn't put her on a pedestal--but examine her beliefs in light of their own era's historical relevance.

[WestWright]

Thanks Mountainaires, your summary of Ayn Rand is excellent and most appropriate for the Historically challenged young posters that seem to think whatever they utter must be the truth.

[D]

Rand is very relevant today. With so many looters and free loaders in today's society, I see her writing as quite prescient. She was 50 years ahead of her time. The current government is a near perfect model of the government she described in Atlas. They have no idea of how to get the economy working again, and things are no where near the bottom.

[Steve]

You can read about Ayn Rand here,well worth your time to find out about this great person.

http://www.aynrand.org/site/Pa....._biography

[Rev Dr E Buzz Miller]

It's not only the federal government, the thinking of the people in the "AS government" is also the thinking of a lot of people in major institutions, including a huge land grant university in the upper midwest that has green and white as it's school colors.

I wonder if it will be the first major university to go out of business. I'm not joking.

[D'oh!]

"Ayn Rand is quite relevant, and not at all evil; she's just a product of her own experience. Let's face it, if you endured the suffering and sacrifice she endured in Russia, you'd be screaming for Gordon Gekko's resurrection too." - Mountainaires

Ayn Rand was an atheist and the founder of a philosophy that made a point of being amoral or, perhaps better, 'transmoral'. To Rand, we are all litle gods of our own universe and are permitted to do anything we want, just so long as WE OURSELVES DETERMINE it harms no one else. Not God, not the fine people at Reason.com, not some law or rulebook, we ourselves get to say what is just and allowed. Saying that her life experiences excuse the results of people living out her philosophy is fine as long as no one gets hurt.

[John Galt]

"the founder of a philosophy that made a point of being amoral"

You could of fooled me. Ayn Rand's philosophy is all about making moral value judgments on every level of philosophy, from Metaphysics all the way to Aesthetics. Read what Ayn Rand had to say about morality:

http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/morality.html

[John Galt]

"To Rand, we are all litle gods of our own universe"

Not to mention the typo, Ayn Rand's philosophy explicitly is opposed to the notion that 'everyone has their own universe'. The term "Objectivism" is taken from the idea that existence exists independent of our own consciousness. In other words, our consciousness doesn't create any aspect of existence--or, on a broader scale, our consciousness doesn't create an entire universe. The universe is defined as 'everything that exists'. And everything that exists, exists independent of anyone one individual's consciousness. There is only one universe, and our consciousness is able to perceive it. But our consciousness doesn't create existence. So the first part of your statement that I quoted, is already incorrect, and therefore everything that follows from it is also false

[John Galt]

"and are permitted to do anything we want, just so long as WE OURSELVES DETERMINE it harms no one else"

are permitted by whom? Ayn Rand's ethics isn't about rules that are dictated by a moral authority like you make it sound like in this sentence. It's about applying reason to reality. And of course, if you deem that taking an action won't harm anyone else, you are free to take it.

[uh_clem]

There are two novels can permanently change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: "The Lord of the Rings" and "Atlas Shrugged". One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other involves Hobbits, Elves and Wizards.

[John Galt]

Here is a perfect example of someone who is so intellectually unable to express himself, that he is reduced to the level of comparing a book which sells 250,000 copies a year, fifty years after originally being published, to a series of books which glorifies self-sacrifice

[Bryan]

Ayn Rand had some good ideas. She also had some bad ideas. She was not infallible. She was not a substitute for the divine. She instituted a cult of personality later in her life and her insistence personal infallibility overtook whatever intelligent message she might have had. Unfortunately, the Randies (her cultists) are her most vocal students, today, so what she had to say of value gets lost in the blind adulation of the cultists.

[John Galt]

"Ayn Rand had some good ideas. She also had some bad ideas. She was not infallible."

Name some of Ayn Rand's "bad ideas". I challenge you to do so.

No one is saying that Ayn Rand was infallible--whatever that means to you. But no one was less intellectually fallible than Ayn Rand

[John Galt]

"She instituted a cult of personality later in her life and her insistence personal infallibility overtook whatever intelligent message she might have had."

What do you mean by this, and where is your proof of it? Are you just someone who likes to make unprovable statements on the Internet and hope that people agree with you, rather than attempting to prove your comments? Let's get some examples of this alleged 'insistence on personal infallibility'? What does that even mean?

[John Galt]

"what she had to say of value gets lost in the blind adulation of the cultists."

In your personal opinion, what did she say of value, and how has it 'gotten lost', when 250,000 copies of Atlas Shrugged are FLYING off the bookshelves EACH AND EVERY YEAR?

[John Galt]

"what she had to say of value gets lost in the blind adulation of the cultists."

In your personal opinion, what did she say of value, and how has it 'gotten lost', when 250,000 copies of Atlas Shrugged are FLYING off the bookshelves EACH AND EVERY YEAR?

[abercrombie milano]

My only point is that if you take the Bible straight, as I'm sure many of Reasons readers do, you will see a lot of the Old Testament stuff as absolutely insane. Even some cursory knowledge of Hebrew and doing some mathematics and logic will tell you that you really won't get the full deal by just doing regular skill english reading for those books. In other words, there's more to the books of the Bible than most will ever grasp. I'm not concerned that Mr. Crumb will go to hell or anything crazy like that! It's just that he, like many types of religionists, seems to take it literally, take it straight...the Bible's books were not written by straight laced divinity students in 3 piece suits who white wash religious beliefs as if God made them with clothes on...the Bible's books were written by people with very different mindsets...in order to really get the Books of the Bible, you have to cultivate such a mindset, it's literally a labyrinth, that's no joke

[abercrombie milano]

My only point is that if you take the Bible straight, as I'm sure many of Reasons readers do, you will see a lot of the Old Testament stuff as absolutely insane. Even some cursory knowledge of Hebrew and doing some mathematics and logic will tell you that you really won't get the full deal by just doing regular skill english reading for those books. In other words, there's more to the books of the Bible than most will ever grasp. I'm not concerned that Mr. Crumb will go to hell or anything crazy like that! It's just that he, like many types of religionists, seems to take it literally, take it straight...the Bible's books were not written by straight laced divinity students in 3 piece suits who white wash religious beliefs as if God made them with clothes on.

[abercrombie milano]

My only point is that if you take the Bible straight, as I'm sure many of Reasons readers do, you will see a lot of the Old Testament stuff as absolutely insane.

[nike shox]

is good