http://reason.com/archives/2012/08/23/what-liberals-dont-understand-about-ayn Critics of the Russian-born writer miss what's important in her ideas. Ayn Rand, the Russian-born writer and self-styled philosopher who died three decades ago, is back in the news as a favorite author of Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan. In recent years, the passionately individualist, pro-capitalist Rand has been embraced as a champion of freedom by many conservatives and libertarians, and denounced as a prophet of greed and narcissism by many liberals. Yet, if Rand admirers tend to ignore the flaws of her vision, her detractors reduce her to grotesque caricature—and invoke her popularity as proof of right-wing nuttiness. One major misconception is that Rand worshipped the rich and saw moneymaking as life’s highest goal. In fact, most wealthy characters in her novels are pathetic, repulsive, or both: businessmen fattened on shady deals or government perks, society people who fill their empty lives with luxury. (There are also sympathetic poor and working-class characters.) In The Fountainhead, Rand’s first bestseller (and best novel), the hero, architect Howard Roark, describes “the man whose sole aim is to make money” as a variety of “the second-hander” who lives through others, seeking only to impress with his wealth. Roark himself turns down lucrative jobs rather than sacrifice his artistic integrity, at one point finding himself penniless. Rand extolled “selfishness,” but not quite in its common meaning. (To some extent, she was using the now-familiar confrontational tactic of turning a slur against a stigmatized group—in this case, true individualists—into a badge of pride.) Roark’s foil, the social-climbing opportunist Peter Keating, gives up both the work and the woman he truly loves for career advancement. Most people, Rand says, would condemn Keating as “selfish”; yet his real problem is lack of self. To Rand, being “selfish” meant being true to oneself, neither sacrificing one’s own desires nor trampling on others. Likewise, Rand’s stance against altruism was not an assault on compassion so much as a critique of doctrines that subordinate the individual to a collective—state, church, community, or family. Was Rand’s individualism too radical? Yes. Her hostility to the idea of any moral obligation to others led her to argue that, while helping a friend in need is fine, doing so at the expense of something it hurts you to give up is “immoral.” In her fiction, even private charity as a vocation is despised; so, mostly, is family. Rand made little allowance for the fact that some people cannot help themselves through no fault of theirs, or that much individual achievement is enabled by support networks. Yet great insights can come from flawed thinkers. Rand’s anti-altruism tirades often turn their target into a straw man, but she is right that the knee-jerk habit of treating altruistic goals as noble has aided evil—for instance, blinding well-meaning Westerners to communism’s monstrosity. When pundits alarmed by Rand-style individualism scoff at the “myth” of individual autonomy, we should remember that this “myth” gave us freedom and human rights, and unleashed creative energies that raised humanity’s welfare to once-unthinkable levels. Rand’s work offers a powerful defense of freedom’s moral foundation—and a perceptive analysis of the kinship between “progressive” and “traditionalist” anti-freedom ideologies. Rand’s ideas apply to the personal as well as the political. One needn’t go to Randian extremes to agree that the valorization of “sacrifice” and the accusation of “selfishness” can be potent weapons for users, manipulators, and family despots—or that dependency is not the path to healthy relationships. (In Rand’s words, “To say ‘I love you,’ one must first know how to say the ‘I.’ ”) A common critique is that Rand appeals to adolescents who think they’re self-sufficient, special, and destined for great achievement. Yet surely the world would be poorer—materially and spiritually—without people who carry some of that “spirit of youth,” as Rand called it, into adulthood. Attacks on Rand have also focused on her person, from her disastrous extramarital affair with a much younger protégé to her brief infatuation, at 23, with a notorious killer she described as an “exceptional boy” warped by conformist society. Ugly stuff, to be sure; but plenty of other intellectuals had a sordid personal lives and romanticized murderers as rebels. Rand is best viewed as a brilliant maverick. But there are reasons this woman attracted hordes of followers, influenced many others, and impressed smart people from journalist Mike Wallace to philosopher John Hospers. Those who treat Rand as a liberal bogeyman will forever be blindsided by her appeal.
When you selfish people finally make unselfish people extinct, who will be left to exploit then? It will be the least selfish of you selfish, who will then be labeled as unselfish. When they go extinct, who will you kill off then? Whoever the softest are among you tough guys. Okay, good job. Liberals are gone. Only the strongest remain. Don't stop now, or the meanest will start complaining again about heir taxes or something. Survival of the meanest is a very old cycle and is nothing new.
I always tickles me when members of the religious right start extolling Rand. Do they have any clue what she actually believed?
Too much shorthand, talking to yourself. You need to explain what you mean. Speaking of that, my internal pictures of this are Little fish eaten by bigger fish eaten by bigger fish eaten by...etc. Dog eat dog world Cannibal's mouth eats its own foot, eventually gets up to mouth... It's all relative to who's left standing...those formerly defined in the selfish group get reclassified into the unselfish group and a new war begins
She's dead, so no longer a threat to herself. She will continue to be a threat to others as long as people read her drivel and adopt her hateful attitude against humanity. Much like Hitler.
She worships elite success within a surrounding economic system. But the individual's values that are necessary to meet her definition of success are values that most people dislike. So her neurotic philosophy will never catch on.
In The Fountainhead, "elite success" was a talented architect who worked in a quarry rather than sacrifice his artistic ability for money. People dislike that?
Any discussion on Ayn Rand will jump back and forth, finding conflicts between the philosophy of her followers, versus the precise storyline of her novels. You are using that tactic to shield yourself when you lose a point.
It's an interesting, and relatively balanced piece on Rand, with some good points. I think Young's take can be summed up with the opening sentences of two of the middle paragraphs: "Was Rand’s individualism too radical? Yes. (...) Yet great insights can come from flawed thinkers." This isn't fluffy hero-worship -- it's an attempt to pick out what is meaningful and relevant from the hyperbole and rhetoric. I'm no Randian egoist, and frankly I find her most die-hard of followers pretty wacko, but there's very clearly some value in her emphasis on the creative and her warning against those who use conspicuous "altruism" to further their own selfish goals. Her characters are cartoonish caricatures, and I always found her books to read more like fables than novels, but that doesn't make their main points completely worthless. I think it's been (ironically) some of her own zealots who have given the best of her ideals a bad rep.
There's no lost point. Her philosophy is plenty good for anyone, be they rich or dirt poor. Rugged Individualism.
One man's definition of hate is another's definition of...? A more generic label might be "heartless" or "without compassion for the less fortunate" but since it was clearly her choice I'll stick with hate.
