Posted on 12/13/2009 11:18:44 AM PST by nickcarraway
From Rush Limbaugh to President Obama, Ayn Rand and her book 'Atlas Shrugged' are recalibrating America.
From Fox News to the passenger sitting next to you reading “Atlas Shrugged” on your commute to work, Ayn Rand seems to be everywhere.
Since the economic collapse of 2008, the controversial novelist and philosopher has emerged as a leading intellectual on the right – and she’s been dead for nearly 30 years.
Rush Limbaugh touts Rand as a prophet of sorts. “Ayn Rand, she wrote ‘Atlas Shrugged,’ ” he told his listeners. “The sequel, ‘Atlas Puked,’ we’re in the middle of it.” At the tea parties that swept the nation last spring, protesters waved signs claiming “Ayn Rand was right” and warning “Read ‘Atlas Shrugged’ before it happens.”
The fresh appeal of 'Atlas Shrugged'
Consider this: “Atlas Shrugged,” Rand’s most famous novel, is set in a dystopian future America, where a socialist government has brought the country to the brink of ruin. Fleeing punitive regulations and crushing taxation, the country’s top industrialists and executives have gone on strike, virtually shutting down the economy.
For American conservatives, the significance of Rand’s message is clear. “Atlas Shrugged” is prophetic, they say, and it warns us all of the coming collapse.
It wasn’t always so. In her day, leading conservatives denounced Rand for her atheism and immorality, and her economic ideas were scarcely mentioned.
Conservative author Whittaker Chambers attacked Rand as a godless authoritarian in his famously brutal review of “Atlas Shrugged,” printed in an early issue of William F. Buckley’s seminal conservative magazine, National Review. The book’s message, according to Chambers, was “to a gas chamber – go!” Anti-ERA crusader Phyllis Schlafly stopped reading Rand’s other novel,
(Excerpt) Read more at csmonitor.com ...
How many other books have you also reviewed?
Our second FReeper Book Club will open some time in January for recruitment, and open for business in February -- I hope. It will be dedicated to a combination of the Federalist Papers and certain Anti-Federalist Papers as a way of framing the debate over the Constitution.
I've been putting off re-reading Ayn Rand, as there is so much garbage written about her writing, LOL --- I think I'll read your essays BEFORE I make a decision whether to re-read any of her books.
Thanks again. I'd been doing quite a few searches at FR, looking for stuff like you Freeper Book Club, but obviously was using the wrong search terms, LOL
Thank YOU.
Your conclusion is correct, in my opinion.
From the article...
In her day, leading conservatives denounced Rand for her atheism and immorality, and her economic ideas were scarcely mentioned.
and...
That many of Rand’s fictional heroes were far from paragons of Christian virtue is beside the point in the current struggle. What matters is the ammunition she provides and the outrage she stokes against the dreaded looters.
... leads me to question the 'all or nothing' stance taken by Rand detractors.
Rands own personal conclusions derived from her philosophy most certainly are not intended to parroted by those who accept Objectivism. Indeed, She would be appalled that someone who thinks rationally would blindly accept her personal conclusions.
Those who are firm in their faith cannot feel that Rand's atheism is a threat. Their position must be that God created all atheists.
” ... John Piper has a critique entitled The Ethics of Ayn Rand that I found very helpful.”
Thank you so much for posting that link. I’m a long time student of Rand, since the 50’s, and have read almost everything I could find related to Rand and her philosophy, and of course everything she has written, including her journals and correspondence. I have never read John Piper’s critique before, and very much appreciated it.
Most critics of Rand do not really understand her at all. I found Piper’s comments refreshingly astute. In fact, his exposition of Rand’s ethics is one of the most succinct and correct explanations I’ve ever read. He has totally captured the essence of her ethical philosophy, and for that I would highly recommend this paper to anyone who wants to understand Rand’s ethics and does not have the patience to read her, “The Virtue of Selfishness,” and “Capitalism: The Unknons Ideal.”
I am going to write a much longer response to this piece and will ping you to that when I have, if you like.
I have to warn you, I am not a theist, but I am not in any way “anti-religion,” and actually have a great deal of sympathy with sincere Christians. The Christian religion has also been a life-long study of mine.
Hank
Thank you for your gracious comments. I would very much appreciate reading your response to John Piper’s response to Ayn Rand.
Exactly. She saw the modern conservative movement as just another party advancing the evolution towards socialism. And she was right.
It's true (to borrow from salon.com), in order for things to get better they must first get worse more slowly, but worse more slowly is all "conservatism" has ever brought. Even under Reagan.
Sad but true.
Her books are not about the ins and outs of religion - which is a good thing, for then everyone would be screaming 'but it's not what MY church teaches.' Her book is not filed in the library under 'religion.'
Her books are about the destroyers vs the builders in gov't and industry - the people who ultimately 'rule'.- that have been in every society. Her books are about what happens when the balance starts to fall in favor of the destroyers. "Atlas" is quite a tome as it is. How big would it need to be to also get into the religious aspects?
THAT is what her 'novels' are about - a blueprint for us to understand the who, what and how our society can/will be destroyed. THAT is the message - to wake up before it's too late.
For stiff necked people to refuse to read the books because it doesn't also cover one's religious beliefs is to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Also, your freedom to exercise your religious freedoms will be null and void if we don't stop this Socialist takeover.
If you want a religiously pure book - go read books of religion.
(Note: I totally disagree with Rand's personal life. I believe she was pitifully devoid of any faith in a higher being. That is a frightful place to be. As a result, her personal life - and of those around her - was a mess.
That does NOT negate her message in "Atlas")
I suspicion that a lot of what doomed her personal life to failure was that, inward, she perceived herself a tall, stunning, blond heroine - i.e. a Dagney - but the mirror reflected a short, dumpy, not attractive, dark haired woman. She was Dagney trapped in an alien body.
Absolute baloney. In the sixties, Greenspan was, indeed, a follower of Rand; even to the point that he wrote what is still considered a classic defense of the gold standard. But, by the nineties, in his capacity as Chairman of the Fed, he'd already abandoned his Objectivist views.
His career from then on was marked by printing money to keep the large banks afloat and thereby manipulate the economy. To associate that with Rand is ignorant and facile.
Her “Capitalism: the Unknown Ideal” is still in print.
That is NOT a novel so people don't have to get wee-weed up about the characters lack of morals as they see them.
I recommend reading it after “Atlas.”
But Rand was right to write it all into a great novel - she knew more people would read it. She was right about that. How many of you have read “Capitalism...”
YOu are right - Greenspan even wrote 3 of the 15 chapters in “Capitalism: the Unknown Ideal”
Did you check out the link I posted?
Most of the “book clubs” that I have seen on FR.com are typically persons just recommending books and occasionally talking about the different works.
The Atlas Shrugged review was simply a marvelous series.
I have been lookingfor a list of books that I posted to the site a couple of years ago. A long reading list of about a hundred conservative books. It is I think on a book thread.
If it’s the link you posted a week or so ago, yes.
What does a guy have to do to get a vote around here?! (LOL)
Thanks for the ping.
I don’t think Rand had anything to do with Fed ideas, but they had a lot to do about his “deregulation” ideas. He cited them when approving the 2000 act that forbade regulation of dervitives.
The market and businessman as superman stuff, regulation is religiously abhored.
Guys like Greenspan are just useful libertarian idiots for the big money.
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