Posted on 02/03/2005 7:47:48 PM PST by tbird5
Today marks the centenary of Ayn Rand's birth. Born Alisa Rosenbaum in St. Petersburg, Russia, on February 2nd, 1905, Rand would go on to become one of the 20th century's foremost voices for human freedom.
After living through the Russian Revolution, and the economic chaos and political repression that came in its wake—events she would later dramatize in her novel We the Living—Rand fled the Soviet Union for the United States in 1926 to begin her career as screenwriter, playwright, and novelist. Dividing her time between Hollywood and New York, the fiercely anticommunist Rand began to develop a philosophy of ethical and political individualism, and to make the acquaintance of such leaders of the libertarian "Old Right" as John Flynn, Henry Hazlitt, Rose Wilder Lane, H.L. Mencken, Isabel Paterson, Leonard Read, and a fellow refugee from European totalitarianism, Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises.
Rand's chief popular success came from The Fountainhead (1943) and Atlas Shrugged (1957), two epic philosophical novels on the model of Dostoyevksy that quickly established her as one of the century's most controversial authors. The enthusiastic audience these works brought her enabled Rand to build a politico-philosophical movement based on the system of thought she would call "Objectivism," and Rand's attention accordingly turned thereafter to nonfiction; she would devote the remainder of her career to editing a series of Objectivist periodicals and to penning philosophical essays, political commentary, and cultural criticism.
(Excerpt) Read more at mises.org ...
Ayn Rand, the militant atheist, taught that selfishness was a virture. Her sophomoric philosophy - objectivism - does not ring true with human nature, and no society could even be built upon it.
But the opposite of her philosophy doesn't work either. Check Atlas Shrugged. As with anything moderation is the key.
I found her philosophy without soul or joy. A life lived for itself alone is wasted. I am surprised she did not end her life like Hemingway.
I agree completely. Although a "Fountainhead" fan in my younger years, somewhere along the line I thankfully came to realize that her humanistic point of view is immature at best.
I made the mistake of reading "Atlas Shrugged" in the dead of winter right after I'd been dumped. It was not an uplifting influence on me, to say the least : ) Ayn Rand did a great job of showing the disastrous consequences of socialism and big govt, but she takes it too far with her "selfishness as virtue" stance. Her political philosophy is fine, but her personal philosophy is repulsive. Sadly, many liberals I know think that all conservatives are Randians - not caring about anyone but themselves.
I'm too religious to accept the elements of Ayn's Objectivist philosophy that preach putting what's good for oneself above doing what's good for others. My strong sense of personal charity and Christian will to aid and protect those less fortune than I keep me from accepting such selfish reasoning at face value. However, I'm far too much of a believer in the validity and strength of the free-market economic system and capitalism in general to dismiss all her teaching out of hand. In some ways, the supply-side economic policies championed so eloquently and successfully by President Reagan in the 1980's owe a lot to the Randian philosophy.
Basically, I'm of two minds on the matter, unless I can pick and choose from Randian philosophy at will. Either way, Ayn is to be appreciated for her clear vision and strong (and quite lonely) battle against communism and it's inherent repressive tendencies at a time when so many good novelists and poets fell for it's false, deceptively humanistic promises (example: Eugene O'Neill).
With the spectres of Communism, National Socialism (fascism), and the New Deal society, her work was perfectly tailored in reason for the 20th century.
Unfortunately, her major novels were works of fiction, and must be dismissed as such, along with 1984, Brave New World, and every other melodrama that's based on one author's absurd fantasies of utopia and dystopia.
Ayn Rand was definitely not suggesting to do as the robbers in Luke 10:30. If the Samaritan did not respect himself as a person, he would have had nothing to give.
The poor you will have with you always.
In Atlas Shrugged and to a lesser extent The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand perfected the novel, and anybody who wants to write a grander, more sweeping, all-encompassing novel, is really out of luck. They have to try a different genre.
However, as much as I like her novels and think they are unsurpassable, I find her writing on Objectivist philosophy unreadable. She's really the greatest novelist that's ever been. As for her philosophy by itself, it's just unreadable -- like reading Chomsky. He'd be dangerous if he could write.
Who is John Galt?
I think you wrong Huxley and Orwell by dismissing their works, nineteen eighty-four and Brave New World, as "...melodrama...based on one author's fantasies of utopia and dystopia." Orwell's novel, for example, maybe a number of things, but 'melodrama' isn't one of them, and the prospect of such a world as he envisioned is patently unabsurd, as anyone living in North Korea can tell you. There is no better, more insightful portrait of the totalitarian mindset to be found anywhere. His novel does what all great literature does: tells a greater truth by means of the artifice of fiction.
I can take or leave Huxley's novel, although his essays are worthwhile. Ayn Rand, on the other hand, is a hack writer and even worse philospher. Whitaker Chambers, in a 50-year-old National Review article recently republished on NR online, had her down cold.
Ever read Mark Twain's 'Essays on Man'? It's a hilarious panning of Rand's Virtue of Selfishness before she was even born.
RE: "Ayn Rand was definitely not suggesting to do as the robbers in Luke 10:30. If the Samaritan did not respect himself as a person, he would have had nothing to give."
Good point, nano, but I believe that at some point in the Objectivist philosophy that I have read, Rand jumps the rails a bit on this one, taking the wonderful and desirable concepts of individuality and creativity to almost absurd links. The hero of Atlas Shrugged (it's been years since I read it, and I can't remember his name) for instance comes off in the end as not so much principled and individualistic as bullheaded and egotistical. I don't think she really understood that there are limits one must place on your self-confidence if you are to help others as Christ commanded you to, and that after you get your own house in order it is beneficial to your life and to your spirit (soul) to actively (quietly) SEEK to help others do the same that you have done.
RE: "The poor you will have with you always."
A sorrowfully unfortunate but absolutely true fact of life in this world of ours-- this world that inspires me to unbridled joy and hideous revulsion in nearly equal measures.
Those real-life stories are the ones that should be told. I feel that all works of fiction work to undermine actual human stories, distorting and misleading to the silly psychological whims of the author. Huxley and Orwell remind me of spoiled old libs who obviously never experienced what real people suffer. If they did, they would have been able to cope with their fears and delusions without writing long and complex stories about them.
My 2 cents... I value their work as entertainment and mildly insightful. As for Ayn Rand, I know she wrote (reality-based) essays besides her novels. That's a format I'm more open to take seriously.
The point of argument is to persuade, and I don't think I can persuade you to view fiction in a different light, but the statement, "...all works of fiction work to undermine actual human stories, distorting and misleading to the silly psychological whims of the author..." runs counter to all human experience. Did Shakespeare undermine 'actual human stories'? Milton? The Psalmist(s) of the Bible? Were they driven to write by 'silly, psychological whims'? Do you believe, then, that all fictional literature and--possibly by extension--all art: painting, music, sculpture, et al, undermine the 'actual'; that is, distort and falsify, rather than contribute to our understanding of reality?
I suggest you pick up a novel commonly considered to be a great piece of literature--Twain's Huckleberry Finn, say, or anything fictional not written by Ayn Rand, and give it a try. The great novelists seek to share a truth about the human condition with their readers, and know that a bare recounting of facts does not get the point across as effectively as a work of fiction. Jesus spoke in parables for a reason.
Whatever their contribution, my and your human experience is more important. Sitting down to a bowl of Cheerios is reality. Anything they produced, however beautiful, is artificial and less valid.
Only recently I've come to reexamine the value of such illusions, however. I used to think "illusion=evil" (therefore all fiction must be evil, as it's an illusion). I had some crazy dreams, thinking how we're all blood and guts inside, so all of our beauty is external and skin deep. By that logic, our inners function to support our external "art". All these questions began when I asked myself why I'm not attracted to girls for their inner beauty, which I know is morally superior, but I keep chasing pretty girls instead for some reason. I may be connecting unrelated things, I suppose, but my struggle is to reconcile completely stark contrasts of value-- lies are so abhorrent, but all media is a lie.. it's technology creating an illusion. Our bodys do the same- organs producing illusions that attract others for the 'wrong reasons'. That's what I see in art- the artist seduces the reader with a falsehood of oil/film/words, etc. But that's all "skin deep".
The real beauty is found in mundane daily life, and can't be equaled by artists. Your experience and mine are more wonderful and didactic than anything Shakespeare ever wrote. (And it doesn't mean he is awful, rather that our lives are truly great.)
I'll bet another 20, payable to JimRob, that you couldn't define 'Objectivism' to save your life.
Miss Rand was wrong about a lot of things, but she had human nature pegged 100%.
You remind me alot of one of her characters.
L
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