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“Atlas Shrieked”

Why am I not surprised? Because I have read some of the books.

The content of the linked article is a bit disgusting but not surprising. Ayn Rand was authoritarian, controlling and heartless. That she would be attracted to a sociapathic killer without a conscience should not come as a shock. What is more disturbing is that a number of business leaders, elected officials and people empowered to formulate economic and social policies and a Supreme Court Justice of our country are so enamored of her. What other "philosophy" could be more heartless and devoid of compassion and ethics than "Randianism?"  

Ayn Rand

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6 responses to ““Atlas Shrieked””

  1. Sujatha

    While I don’t agree any more with Ayn Rand’s philosophy, I do remember admiring the master-morality that she affected to deify in We the Living (the first book by her that I read), Fountainhead, and the incomprehensible babble that Atlas Shrugged degenerates into. I was a teen at that time, quite disgusted with the rife “poor me-ism” that I thought I saw all around me, a lack of rationality, honesty to oneself. Her disdain for the poor was a bit puzzling, but I was willing to overlook it at the time. A year or so later I decided the whole ‘Superman’ mentality was messed up, being as we are, imperfect human beings, sympathy, empathy and altruism aren’t dirty words after all, as Rand would have you think.
    Regarding Hickman, I’m not sure she was blind to the evil. In her own words, the play Little Street that she worked on at the time had a ‘hero’ who was:
    “A Hickman with a purpose. And without the degeneracy. It is more exact to say that the model is not Hickman, but what Hickman suggested to me.”
    I’m assuming she is describing a more lofty purpose than killing for the sheer pleasure of it and still extracting a ransom. Her adulation of Hickman was because of the ‘one man against the world/society mode’ that she so revered, as the ultimate Übermensch. (Source: Wikipedia on Hickman)
    “The first thing that impresses me about the case is the ferocious rage of a whole society against one man. No matter what the man did, there is always something loathsome in the ‘virtuous’ indignation and mass-hatred of the ‘majority.’… It is repulsive to see all these beings with worse sins and crimes in their own lives, virtuously condemning a criminal…”

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  2. Ruchira

    Sujatha, your reaction to Rand is typical – a teenager impressed by strong, rational, self reliant men and women. And that they indulge in some hot, panting sex while conducting ridiculously rational conversations like super-humans, also helps titillate the adolescent mind. We all admire Superman when we are children. You are also typical (and rational) that you grew up and recognized the lack of heart and humanity in Rand’s prescriptions. My own reaction to her was similar (I wrote about that in one of my blog posts). Overwhelming majority of “sensible” people I know were exposed to her in their teen years and outgrew her one-dimensional “libertarian” philosophy by their early twenties. The problem is with those who never out-grow the juvenile, sociopathic Randianism. Unfortunately, too many of the movers and shakers in the American corridors of power fall in that category.
    As for the average Tea Partier and Rand, there is a lot of hypocrisy there. Their self-reliant libertarianism extends only as far as taxes, regulations and social services go. As soon as you go into the realm of abortion, gay marriage and farm subsidies, their “government off our backs” attitude undergoes a One-Eighty turnaround.

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  3. Sujatha

    I think reading Mother by Maxim Gorky ( about the long-suffering patient, doormattish mother, emblematic of Mother Russia, I suppose) gave me a different perspective on the Communist movement and workers. Where Rand deifies the capitalist, Gorky deifies the workers. So looking at different perspectives, even if extremely opposed, allowed a callow teen to snap out of the Randian spell. It’s a pity that all the current Rand-worshippers never got beyond her books to read other views.

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  4. Joe

    Fascinating link. I’d never stopped to think about it, because I’ve never taken Ayn Rand seriously enough to read but did categorize her as, in the words of the author, “Nietzsche for sorority girls” — but diagnosing Rand’s “philosophy” as psychopathy makes a lot of sense.

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  5. Pepito

    I agree with Joe. It helped that I had no idea who she was until I was an adult. American veneration for her is puzzling, to say the least.

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  6. Sarkany

    I’m not sure if you’re American, Pepito, but I’m surprised you find it surprising she’s so popular with Americans. Not only was she a darling of the Cold War, she espoused the qualities that Americans love to think they have.
    Needless to say, I can’t stand her.

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