Good morning readers. Thanks for coming by for a read this morning.
I’ve said a few things about Ayn Rand on this blog a number of readers found objectionable. A goodly number found it offensive enough to cancel subscriptions, which I don’t find objectionable at all.
Fact is, I was once an avid reader of Ayn Rand. Not being a reader of Ayn Rand was a way a person could declare himself a non-pseudo-intellectual, which of course, I certainly didn’t wish to be. At the time, admitting to the shameful fact of not having read Atlas Shrugged, or Fountainhead, reduced the stature of the person admitting it to something akin to not having seen Gone With The Wind.
In all honesty I found Rand’s fiction tedious, with the exception of Anthem, which nobody’d ever heard of [few Rand admirers probably have to this day] and didn’t win any intellectual points in the 1960s. So when I came across The Virtue of Selfishness, in 1965, I welcomed the read because I thought it could provide discussable insights into Rand’s viewpoints while sparing the reader all the muscle-flexing fictional heroes.
Which it did. And having read it I quickly ceased being an admirer of Rand, to whatever extent I might have been previously.
I suspect those who read, or claim to have read Ayn Rand today probably derive opinions about her, and her work, from the fiction works and admiration for the fictional characters. The gut-level response to Horatio Algerism with a bit of Paul Bunyan thrown in.
But the appeal of Rand at the time was located in fictional characters. The Virtue of Selfishness quickly was to be found on the reduced price shelves at the book stores. Because, the simple fact is that nobody loves an ego-maniac. Nobody loves a selfish, grasping, gluttonous, greedy person when the fictional fantasies are stripped away.
And giving it a fancy name, objectivism, rationalizing the state-of-being that goes with it, just doesn’t add anything to the equation. There might never have been a culture in the history of mankind where greed was openly, admittedly, frankly, an object of admiration. In fact, the opposite is mostly true.
So today when Rand admirers are justifying their world-views by using her tepid arguments in favor of devil-take-the-hindmost, they rarely use the name of her tour d’force work, where she attempts to explain herself. They know somewhere inside themselves it’s off-putting to the listener.
So the buzzwords are used, instead. Short phrases bounced around back and forth that needn’t be defended.
Nobody needs Ayn Rand to justify selfishness and self-centeredness, but she provides an excuse, however lame.
Old Jules
Edit 8:12 am – There’s a mysterious, paradoxical side of the 21st Century fascination with Rand I neglected to mention. Today admiration for Rand is the unlikely and somewhat ironic focal point where fundamentalist Christians join hands with atheists. Both quote snippets of Rand, claim to have read her.
All of which makes a certain amount of sense for atheists of a particular sort. But it’s not easy to reconcile with Christianity. After all, lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, anger, envy and pride have been universally accepted as the Seven Deadly, or Venal, or Mortal Sins since a time long before Protestants. And I don’t recall any Protestant sect ever declaring openly to repudiate them.
So Far From Heaven 
Although her tomes are somewhat wordy she did foresee what is now happening. And yes, A=A.
Good morning Momlady. Thanks for coming by. Predicting human behavior accurately, describing what humans are going to do and how they’re going to behave just isn’t all that difficult. Though I doubt she’d have predicted she’d be quoted and bandied about among a tiny segment of humanity in 2012. Whatever else is happening that she foresaw has happened so many times in human history as to be a given, thinks I. Almost every writer of the 20th Century managed to do some of it. Gracias, J
I’m in entire agreement with you!
read all of her books when they came out…the extreme egotism put me off from the get go…I dubbed it then & now as “the arrogance of the stupid”.
How did you miss Taylor Caldwell who defined everything that has & is occurring in her torrid tomes complete with bibliographies which I then tracked in the library & Congressional record?
she outlined & documented many of the things that Dean Handler in his blog..Left Hook….documents now.
her last major warning was nullified when they took her “Captains & Kings” & made it into a TV mini series.
Hi dayledann: I’m not certain I ever read a Taylor Caldwell book all the way through, though I recall beginning a few. Likely that’s how I missed it. Gracias, J
Hey Jules! Awesome post. Rand seemed to be deteriorating over time from a writer of interest-grabbing tales, into a political activist of the most bland nature. You’re right. When someone drops the humility and decides to cast out the nature of critical thinking, they become a ranter with volume and no volition. It doesn’t mean we shouldn’t analyze the work for what it’s worth; it just means we take the author with a grain (or a block) of salt. Can’t fathom why people would drop their sub on you, simply because of an ideological difference. Keep it up Jules, I’m still a fan!
A concept which I believe is a Rand-ism, at least in a roundabout sense, is the idea that doing what is best for you is doing what is best for society. But this has to be understood not in the self-centered concept most people attach to it, but in a much larger view.
In other words, it is better for me to be a responsible husband, parent, employee/employer, and citizen because it is good for my family, business and country. Being a philandering louse who abandons his children, puts in a crappy effort at his job and is a threat to society by committing crimes is, on a micro level, selfish and self-centered, but in reality it’s not good for anyone, even the individual in question. He, ultimately will wind up, one would assume, with an unsatisfying existence and quite possible behind bars. Society, of course, will suffer for his actions. If he is wise enough, he understands that doing what is best for him is often the same as doing what is best for his family and others. Not always, but often.
Now, getting the vast majority of people to understand that being selfish in the larger sense, i.e., doing what’s best for more than just themselves because ultimately it will improve the lives of those around them, that’s a challenge I’m not going to pretend to understand how to accomplish.
Good seeing you, Cotton Boll Conspiracy.
I can’t disagree with the ‘larger’ concept, approached as an ideal, though I can’t entirely agree, either. Human beings have a way of smelting abstractions, including ideals, and pouring them into a crucible for molding into whatever suits their purposes. And my personal thought is that their purposes rarely have anything to do with ‘overall good’ unless the two happen to cross paths with one another by accident. But I’m not a utopian, mostly. My pesky mind tends to keep fretting away at side issues and derivations until it finds forests of exceptions to every rule-of-thumb. Ethics and personal responsibility, seems to me, doesn’t need conscious intrusion of deliberate selfishness thrown into the mix with a stew of caveats apologizing for it, thinks I. We humans are more lacking in governors for our behaviors than our deficits rationalizing, say, greed.
Gracias, Jules
Funny, Anthem was the 2nd one I read after Atlas Shrugged. and i enjoyed it more than any of the others. But I was so much older than, I’m younger than that now. All of her books are gone, but Anthem might still be on the bookshelf.
Hi Morgan: I can’t recall now which I read first. Must have been Fountainhead, but I think I came across Anthem more-or-less by accident shortly afterward. I don’t believe any are left on my shelf, haven’t been there in 40 years. But I have to cull to keep from pulling around a Bookmobile with a trailer and books stacked on top. Gracias, Jules
I haven’ t seen Gone With The Wind. I am surprised that the religious support her. I thought she rejected all manners of faith.
Hi Kate. Thanks for coming by. I haven’t seen Gone With the Wind, either, but I don’t recall ever admitting it before. Yep, it’s surprising conceptually, but more-or-less unsurprising in the larger context. Gracias, Jules
Ayn Rand’s proposed philosophy had its appeal for this reader, back when youth demanded a search for the two forms of denial needed to justify and rationalize selfish hedonism. It’s amazing how old age tends to view needs differently than wants…
Good morning Lindy Lee. Yeah, I can see how it could, saw how it did for many. I, personally never needed any help rationaling hedonism as a youth, probably still wouldn’t if I had an opportunity to do some hedonizing. Gracias, Jules
Hello Jules,
After becoming aware that Paul Ryan is – even if he disavows it now – a follower of Rand’s theories, I decided I needed to read some of her works and started with “Atlas Shrugged”, but I find it hard to read, as hard as James Joyce’s “Ulysses” and Saint Exupery’s “The Citadel” – both of which I’ve never been able to finish. To me, it’s a chore, not a pleasure, and I constantly have to kick myself in the butt to continue reading. Let’s see if I can finish Rand’s.
Best regards, and have a good one,
Pit
Hi Pit. I’ve never read the “The Citadel”, though I thought I’d read everything by Saint X. Back during my pilot days I read him, Ernest Gann, Lindberg, all the writers who wrote about flying and the early days of heavier than air flight. My thought is that after you finish Atlas Shrugged you mightn’t feel the need to read Fountainhead. Gracias, J
Hi Jules,
I’ve read Lindberg’s account of his flight across the Atlantic, too, but I’ve never heard of Gann. Saint X was kind of a must when I was young, btw, especially his “Little Prince”.
As to “Atlas Shrugged” and “Fountainhead”: thanks for the advice. From what I’m experiencing with “Atlas” – the heavy reading it is – I guess you may have a point!
Take care, and enjoy a relaxing Labor day,
Pit
Hi Pit. Ernest Gann wrote a good many books about flying, some were made movies of in the 50s. The names are on the tip of my tonguish mind at the moment, but slipping out of reach. Except Gentlemen In Adventure. Which many didn’t consider his best. Gracias, J
Hi Jules, I’ve never heard of Ayn Rand, but you’ve piqued my interest with your post. I’ll check her out on Wikipedia 🙂
imasinglelondongirl: Good way to fill your head with knowledge of her without all the extra words, I reckons. Gracias, J
What is surprising is that someone who believes that “selfishness is a virtue” would be a subscriber to a magazine devoted to altruistic politics.
Hi Luke. Why’s that surprising? Assuming you’re referring to someone other than yourself. Gracias, J
A few weeks ago I watched a documentary on her life because altho I had seen her books in high school and college, I had never read one or had a clue what they were about. As I watched the film, and heard her philosophy being expounded upon, I realized I was hearing what sounded so similar to the right wingers who terrorize my facebook newsfeed. And most of these… Christians. And I began to be in awe that they had somehow ingested these principles, yet found them to not be inconsistent with their professed faith, of which I do to the extreme. Ever since I saw the documentary, her name has been popping up everywhere I go – even here! Thanks for doing this book review because it will save me alot of time. I don’t have time for really long works of bad fiction.
Hi 8th Day: Glad you found the book review useful. It’s interesting the Coincidence Coordinators led you to post this. I’ve been mulling over some aspects of the concept of ‘belonging’ abstractions a goodly bit lately. drew my attention, reading how a young woman didn’t find people who called themselves ‘Rainbows’, or Rainbow Family, Rainbow Warriors, etc, were living up to her expectations. I posted a number of observations there, some of which I probably should have posted here as a blog entry.
Permalink Reply by Old Jules on August 28, 2012 at 4:41am
aubreyiris: Interesting life you’ve led. Seems to me trying to clump too many things together and draw conclusions from them can lead to a lot of inaccurate conclusions and challenging directions. There aren’t any ‘these Rainbows’. There are people of every sort being driven by every possible motive accompanied by every human flaw who choose to participate in ‘Rainbow’ activities of one facet or another. Just a lot of individuals who find comfort in believing they belong to a larger body of people. Their reasons for doing so are countless and it probably isn’t reasonable to expect a particular mode of behavior from any group, sub-group or individual among them. Naturally there’s a lot of word-use suggesting higher principles are involved, and with some, probably it’s true. But with others it won’t be. Hypocracy, fantasy, illusion, ego-driven rhetoric and confusion abound in human beings of every group and Rainbow’s no exception. J
Permalink Reply by Old Jules on August 31, 2012 at 3:57am
Fact is, the difference between ‘being a Rainbow’ and not being a Rainbow lies in whether the individual utters the phrase, “I am a Rainbow,” or thinks that phrase. Plenty of people wear tie-died tee shirts, frizzled hair, bandannas wrapped around their heads who aren’t Rainbows because they’ve never thought, nor said the phrase. Lots of people say lofty, spiritual-sounding things and quotations back and forth to one another [both sincerely, and fatuously] but aren’t Rainbows. Lots of people believe themselves wise enough to give others advice, or demand others see the world in a particular way without being Rainbows.
Which renders the question, when you boil it down and scrape it off the bottom of the pan, “Why [assuming I do] do I say I am a Rainbow?” An equally valid question for those who do as your question to yourself was, which you explained more-or-less as though the default is saying you are.
Permalink Reply by Old Jules on Sunday
Tai: My first exposure to Rainbow was at the gathering in the mountains near Taos, NM, in the early 1990s.
I was there as part of the New Mexico Emergency Management team sent to keep anyone from setting fire to the National Forest, keep the locals who were up in arms from killing any Rainbows or beating hell out of them, and the constantly reminding the National Guardsmen they weren’t there to kill anyone [even though they were being harassed to high heaven, even though they were locked and loaded with live ammo, and even though they’d been given no rules of engagement to clarify the circumstances they’d be forgiven for opening fire].
I was in a different reality from the folks who ran alongside our vehicles pretending we’d just come back from Vietnam and they were flower children condemning us. I wasn’t much impressed with anything I saw during that week.
It was only several years later I encountered Rainbows in remote forests in small groups, or picked them up hitching rides, that I recognized there’s more than one kind of person calls himself/herself a Rainbow.
But spoiled, self-indulgent party children aren’t all that different from one another whether they’re attending raves, partying after ball games, or a bunch of good old boy rednecks hassling a gay somewhere. Bunch them up and there’s nothing much about them to admire.
Mostly not individually, either, for that matter.
But I met some good ones hitching, and some good ones in the woods I wouldn’t mind meeting again.
Seems to me most of what I said about Rainbows applies equally well to Christians.
Gracias, J
Interesting perspective which is also true. But even so, the Coincidence Coordinators are prompting me to write… so I will catch you later. 🙂 Really enjoy your blog. Hope you get your wifi worked out!
8thday4life: Glad you came by and found something interesting. No doubt in my mind the wifi thing will work out one way or another. gracias, J
You point out how some Christian fundamentalists read Ayn Rand. True. My ex-boss, who is a staunch Southern Baptist read *Atlas Shrugged* and absolutely loved it. He went on to read more, I can’t remember which ones. He still swears by her writing. Strange.