Ayn Rand (nee Alissa “Alice”
Zinovievna Rosenbaum) would’ve turned 100 yesterday. To quote Chistopher “Incoming Signals” Bahn, we should all bake cakes and then not share them with anybody.
Rand did get a few things right, in my opinion: communism bad,
capitalism good, reward the talented who produce good output. But her
philosophy, Objectivism, also casts petty selfishness, meanness and
“screw you” as virtues and altruism and charity as vice. Its version of
morality is overly simple and already comes built-in with any five-year
old.
Her followers at the Ayn Rand Institute are no picnic either. Consider the essay What Young People Really Need: Not Volunteerism but Happiness and Heroes:
There is nothing wrong with an individual doing charity work, if it
is not a sacrifice for him. But charity is not a moral ideal, nor does
human life depend on it. Achievement is the moral ideal because man’s
life does depend on it.
If you live by this code of achievement, and struggle for your own
values and attain happiness, then, as a by-product, your life will
serve as an inspiration to others, showing them how much is possible,
giving them courage to struggle for their own achievements. Michael
Jordan, for example, has been termed a “know-nothing capitalist” by
those who, like the President [Bill Clinton at the time the article was written — Joey], hold that goodness consists of taking
poor children to the zoo on a summer day. But a question needs to be
raised to the advocates of volunteerism. What do you think young people
find more inspiring: the sight of Jimmy Carter building churches in the
jungles of Guatemala, or the vision of Michael Jordan soaring through
the air, winning championships and earning millions, then flashing his
joyous, brilliant, life-giving smile? The truth is that Michael
Jordan’s extraordinary success has inspired far more young people,
poor, middle-class or rich, black, white or Asian, to strive for their
own dreams than an army of social workers could ever think possible. As Ayn Rand puts it in Atlas Shrugged, “The sight of an achievement is the greatest gift that a human being could offer to others.”
What. An. Ass. The parable A Boy’s Life or Death is even worse, suffering from both bad philospohy and ham-fisted writing.
Ayn Rand is the topic of discussion on MetaFilter and on the cover of this month’s issue of Reason magazine. If you’d like to find out more about her from a devotee and a detractor, consider this essay by acolyte Leonard Peikoff and this smackdown by Catherine Daligga.
(Amusing note: according to Daligga’s essay, Rand’s funeral wreath was a six-foot floral dollar sign. She was gangsta rap before gangsta rap!). Bling bling, Annie!
Proof that there’s a dating service for every subculture: there’s an Ayn Rand dating and networking site!
Who wants to bet that all those dates are “Dutch”?
3 replies on “Happy Belated 100th, Ayn Rand!”
Its version of morality is overly simple and already comes built-in with any five-year old.
What, pray tell, is your experience with Objectivism? What have you read? It sounds like you’re arguing from a position of ignorance since her morality is far more nuanced than you may know. Unfortunately, it’s mostly only available in her books which aren’t online and thus probably out of your awareness.
I pointed to online sources because they’re what you can link to using a web page.
As for calling me ignorant, that’s just an invitation for Daddy to take you to school in the car of pain. Hop in, Junior!
I will admit that my experience with Objectivism is limited — I’ve only read
and only hung out at a couple of meetings of the Objectivist Club at Stanford when in lived in San Francisco during the dot-com wave. A couple of acquaintances at a party in Oakland were trying to convert me to the cause, and I thought “Hey, no harm in checking it out.” They loaned me the books.
Objectivism’s nuances are like those in the declaration “We got both kinds of music here! Country and western!”
Don’t forget that I work in the high-tech and business world, so I walk amongst her disciples. My observation is that business people seem to admire Objectivism because it caters to greed; geeks tends to go for Objectivism because it caters to their revenge fantasies.
The groups were mostly single young men. Their knowledge of women is largely from porn, they bitched about their salaries despite the fact that they were just out of school and all in the US$100K range and they thought the fact that I tended to bike rather than drive was a little outre.
I have no trouble with the self-reliance or even egoism as virtues. I simply think that altruism is not a vice and that it’s not “all about you”.
Careful now Joey, are you acommunist? đ
Okay, kidding aside I have to agree with what you say. Self Reliance and alturism aren’t exlusive of each other, though I do know quite a few people who seem to be centered around themselves.
I have never read any of her writing, though I was tempted by it as I have been told by a lot of people that I should at least read “Atlas Shrugged”.
Oh well, maybe one day, but I still don’t think I would agree with her opinions, though if I have to guess (without knowing much about her): She probably got were she was by herself and came to think that her way is the only way. I find that rather sad actually.