Funny Mistakes and Malignant Intentions: The Real Rand and Her Critics

Somebody at the distribution house for the film adaptation of Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged goofed. They wrote jacket copy saying the story was about "courage and self-sacrifice." An error, to be sure. And given that Rand believed no one should be sacrificed to anyone there is a certain amount of humor in the error. Of course, the film company is not laughing as they are recalling 100,000 copies for new covers.

Well, I've got mine and I'm not giving it back. Damn, that is a collector's piece. Copies with the old, erroneous cover will always be worth more than the reissued copies, especially since these will be unqualified proof that the edition is the real first one issued. All others will have the corrected cover.

What is interesting is the choir of hate that rose up to use this as another excuse to misstate Rand's views, to lie about her, and to smear her. It is predictable. Be they Christian Rightist or Left-wing Progressives, they simply can't help bashing Rand, usually by inventing her as a monster, often one espousing the very opposite of her actual beliefs.

Here are a few of those lies.

Gawker: "Self-sacrifice is for idiots, duh! Ayn Rand use to mock poor beggars for being so poor." Of course, no source is cited for this claim. So how did Atlas Shrugged deal with such a person in the novel? No doubt Rand had her "hero" shove any beggars into ovens to die the wretched death they deserve. Or did she?

Luckily Rand actually describes an incident beginning on page 654 of Atlas Shrugged. Heroine Dagny Taggart is riding in one of the trains of her company. She exits her car and hears a conductor screaming: "Get off. God damn you!" She describes the victim of the scream as an "aging tramp" who "had taken refuge" in the corner of Dagny's vestibule. He was someone with "no strength" but his eyes were "observant, fully conscious, but devoid of any reaction." The conductor has the door open and the train is slowing for a curve. It is clear the conductor wants to push the man out into the darkness.

Of course, according to true Randian inspiration, Dagny rushes forward and kicks the man to his death—or NOT!

Dagny actually looks at both men and sees that neither views the other properly: "The two men were not human beings to each other any longer." The tramp gets up, ready to jump, grabbing the small bundle of his belongings. Dagny yells out: "Wait." Rand wrote, "'Let him be my guest,' she said to the conductor, and held her door open for the tramp, ordering, 'Come in.'"

She offers the man a seat and asks him when he last ate. He responds, it might have been the day before. "She rang for the porter and ordered dinner for two, to be brought to her car from the diner." Damn, Rand, she missed a chance to prove that her critics aren't liars!

The tramp and Dagny talk. He tells her he doesn't want her to get in trouble. She wonders why she would, and he says because she must be traveling with a tycoon to be in her own car. She says she isn't. He assumes she must a tycoon's wife then. She says she isn't. He responds with a knowing, "Oh," implying her purpose was that of a prostitute or mistress. Was this where she sends him flying to his demise? Damn, not again! Instead, she laughed and told him she ran the railroad. They share dinner and conversation for several more pages. What a monster!

An unnamed author at Huffington Post ridicules the company that released the film because they set up a site where people can order, free of charge, a corrected version of the cover, if they wish. This for "angry Objectivists." Does Huffington Post think there are any other kind? There are, of course, it's just that they don't think so, they prefer their stereotypes. Actually the Objectivists I know find this error more amusing than infuriating. The anonymous author then misrepresents Rand's views by claiming "The generous offer strikes us as distinctly un-Randian." How is it "unRandian?" They don't say and I hazard they would have a hard time given a coherent answer—they would just stutter some remarks indicating they have no fucking clue what they are talking about? To say the least, there is nothing "unRandian" in making good on an error you committed. In fact, she would frown on those who didn't do so. But that doesn't fit the stereotype.

Gothamist used the same kind of smear, one you expect from bigots. Bigots tend to operate with a stereotype of the person or group they hate? Ditto for the Randaphobes. Bigots also tend to have limited knowledge about the group or person they hate. Ditto again when it comes to the Rand bigots. So, yes, this is a form of bigotry rooted in the same ignorance and hatred as other forms of bigotry. Gothamist can't even start the article about the recall without issuing an insult—much the way neo-Nazis can't mention Jews with first throwing in insults: "Ayn Rand's dogmatic 1957 novel Atlas Shrugged, beloved by simpleton frat boys and self-serving millionaires alike....."

How does that work? How do these simpletons become millionaires? There have been lots of insults thrown at Atlas, but this is the first time I've run into anyone who honestly thinks that it is a book for simpletons. But then, I said "honestly thinks" didn't I? And there is no indication that is a honest thought at all. And didn't Hillary Clinton list Atlas Shrugged as an influence on her life? Oh, I forgot, she actually is a "self-serving millionaire."

Gothamist twists Rand's actual ideas grotesquely. They claim the DVD recall was to prevent purchasers from absorbing "some sick, twisted message of generosity." The emphasis on generosity was their own. Not only did Rand never condemn generosity but she was herself generous. Numerous people were given places to live at Rand's own expense. She sent food packages after World War II to friends and family. When she learned of a former teacher in a settlement camp in Europe she sponsored the woman to come to the US, and allowed her to live in her own home for a year.

Consider what happened when Ayn Rand came across the Kato family. These Japanese-Americans were incarcerated in racially-based concentration camps by the "benevolent" administration of Franklin Roosevelt. The husband and wife, along with a young daughter and small son, had been imprisoned entirely due to their race. But Roosevelt said all the things that make the Left go soft in the brain, so he's a good guy—unlike that evil bitch, Ayn Rand.

As for the evil bitch, well she discovered the Kato family had lost everything. Ryoji Kato lost his business when he was arrested due to his ethnicity. His wife Haruno, had worked in their business as well. They also lost their home. Once they were released they had nothing left. Daughter June was staying in a church-run hostel that was helping people from the camps trying to regain their life. Younger brother Ken was with his parents. Rand certainly knew what this felt like. Her father lost his business to the Bolsheviks the same way Mr. Kato lost his business to FDR. Her family lost their home and she was a refugee as well.

At the time, Rand and husband, Frank O'Connor, lived in a rural area north of Los Angeles, now part of Chatsworth. Rand hired Haruno as a cook—even though June says her mother couldn't cook very well and in spite of Rand already having a cook. Ryoji was also hired to help Frank with the flowers that he grew on the property—even though Mr. Kato had no previous experience gardening. Ten-year-old Ken was a bit young to be hired for anything. As for June, though she had just graduated high school, and had no experience, Rand hired her as well, to come to the house every weekend and do typing. In addition to paying a salary to June, Ryoji and Haruno, Rand also gave the family two rooms in her house so they had a place to live. Damn, apparently she didn't know that generosity was against her own philosophy. No one told her. But then, she was such a monster, who would dare? In addition to the Kato family another resident in Rand's home was Maria Strachova, an elderly refugee who had taught English to Rand as a child. Rand took her in for a year.

Rosalie Wilson was a small child when she met Rand and O'Connor. Her mother was once engaged to O'Connor's brother Joe, but eventually married someone else. When the Wilson couple were having a hard time in their relationship they went away to try to mend it. Rand and O'Connor gave Rosalie a home with them for the time, even though they lived in a one bedroom apartment. At night Ayn and Frank would sit in the lounge while Rosalie slept in the only bed. After a few hours they would trade with her, sleeping in their bed while she finished the night on the couch. Rosalie remained close to Ayn until one summer when she and her mother were invited to Rand's home for dinner. Her mother, who Rosalie describes "as a real bigot," made some bigoted remarks to Rand that ended the friendship between the mother and Ayn. Rosalie says she never contacted Rand again because she was too humiliated by what her mother had done.

Tammy Vaught lived with her parents and brother in Titusville, Florida, when Ayn Rand came to town to see a shuttle launch. Due to the high number of people in town for the launch the local Chamber of Commerce arranged for visitors to stay with families. Rand and her husband stayed with the Vaughts. Tammy remembered her as "just a nice lady" and didn't know Rand's fame, and clearly didn't realize what her reputation was supposed to be.

Even though her parents told her not to bother the visitors, Tammy did bother Ayn, to have conversations with her and to tell her about her stamp collection. For years afterwards Rand would send Tammy stamps for her collection, from letters she received, and would periodically call her on the phone to see how she was doing and if her gifts had arrived. Tammy described Rand:

I didn't know her as an artist: I knew her as a friend, through the stamps, and things like that. It was more of a grandmother, or an older person, that just took an interest in you, and just kept in touch. I don't think as a child I had any idea of how famous she was. She didn't act like a famous person. I didn't know of her work.

Damn the woman! Has she no decency? And she got worse, Tammy's father said, "I was surprised about her not having children, because she seemed to be so good with them." And it doesn't end with that horror: "She seemed to enjoy the children so much. They were swimming in our pool, and she just enjoyed listening to them laughing." Ayn Rand enjoyed hearing the laughter of children—clearly she was a beast and should have been burnt at the stake.

Obviously these critics are either intentionally confusing what Rand believed, or they simply have no idea what she said. She did damn a moral creed of altruism and self-sacrificing. She didn't think any human was a sacrifice for any other human. She was a critic of altruism and carefully defined what she meant by the term: "that service to others is the only justification for his [an individual's] existence." She warned people to never "confuse altruism with kindness, good will or respect for the rights of others." Apparently Rand's whiny critics never actually read what she wrote, otherwise they wouldn't have made this kind of accusation. The accusation itself proves their own ignorance about Rand. There is nothing wrong with knowing little to nothing about Rand and her ideas—but these authors are speaking to the public as if they are knowledgeable when clearly they aren't. But bigots are rarely really knowledgeable regarding the objects of their irrational hatred.

One of the traits of a bigot is that he strips his prey of their humanity. He presents cardboard characters that are supposed to fit some predetermined, evil mould. While such blatant bigotry is no longer tolerated when it comes to gays, blacks, Jews, women, etc., the Left seems to relish it when it comes to Ayn Rand—even if they have to lie to do it. Then lying is how bigots convince themselves their bigotry is actually a clever perception that the rest of us "simpletons" don't see.

Atlas Shrugged and Homos are Destroying America

Yep, I know, that's a pretty hilarious combination of threats to the American way of life. But, if you take professional hysteric, former Nixon operative, full-time fundamentalist loon Chuck Colson, as a fount of wisdom, then you have to be worried. I just can't figure out who he hates more: Objectivists or gays. And you gay Objectivists had better steer clear of old upChuck.

Unfortunately blogger is not sophisticated enough to share with you the actual recording of Olson breathlessly warming Americans and the deadly and dangerous group known as "daGays." But deGays are destroying the religious freedom to impose godly beliefs on others. Colson does so by embellishing the facts. Hey, if you can make up a virgin birth and dead people resurrecting then embellishing a few facts is nothing.

Colson's first example, of THE THREAT, regards King & Spalding, a law firm hired by Republicans to try and defend the Defense of Marriage Act against any legal challenges. A conservative lawyer at the firm signed a deal to defend the case but a few days later the firm said it was not going ahead with the case. Right-wing pundits salivated, foamed and started screaming about deGays and their AGENDA. Colson claimed the firm had acted unethically.

Pity the facts were something different. The lawyer, Paul Clement, had said he would take the case. But there is a committee at the firm which has to approve very contract BEFORE the case is taken on board. Clement neglected to show anyone the contract until four days after he announced they had taken the case. When the committee read the contract the Republicans insisted they sign, they balked. Among the terms was a gag order on every employee of the firm, which is hundreds of people in 12 cities, forbidding any of them to speak in favor of marriage equality, even if they had nothing to do with the case. The contract, by the way, would be illegal in numerous states. Instead of noting the illegal and ethically dubious nature of the contract, and that it had never been vetted according to firm protocol, the Colsons of the world launched into another plot by deGays.

Next Colson misstates the facts about an immigration case. According to Colson "The Obama administration stopped the deportation order for a gay immigrant because the Justice Department feels that the man could be considered a spouse of another man under U.S. immigration laws." This is simply not the case. There are numerous cases where spouse of gay Americans are being deported, something that would not happen to people legally married in heterosexual relationships. These couples are legally married but the Republicans wish to use a federal definition and ignore the wishes of the states in this matter. They call that protecting the states' rights to define marriage.

In fact, each case is still proceeding. And the Obama administration deserves no credit for doing the right thing here. I wish they had. Instead they made it clear that will continue the deportations of legally-married spouses in gay relationships. This one case was delayed because the Justice Department said that other factors, unrelated to the status of marriage, were not considered but should have been. They issued a letter at the time stating this had nothing to do with recognizing gay marriages. Maybe if Olson read something other than the Old Testament he would have been familiar with the facts.

Colson says gays, protesting about anti-gay policies, "are coercing corporations, and no law firms." Odd. Speech, even boycotts, are not coercion. But legal bans using the force of government ARE coercion. Theopublicans like Colson want to use government force and violence and they call that "law" while anyone criticizing such use of state power is charged with using "coercion." Republicans have an odd definition of coercion.

If you think deGays are dangerous, and what right-thinking, born-again, Bible-believing, revivalist doesnt, then what do you make of those evil, dangerous people who read Atlas Shrugged? Colson issued a fatwa on Atlas Shrugged that he called a "two-minute warning." But Rand is so dangerous that it actually took 3 1/2 minutes to denounce this spawn of Satan.

This time I can share the hysterical warnings about Ayn Rand.

I guess Objectivists are at least one level more dangerous than deGays because Olson warns about the Atlas Shrugged movie twice over. "Not only should you stay away from the film, you ought to stay away from anybody who wants to see the film." Fundamentalists have previously warned Christians to never be friendly with a gay person, because they discovered that people who gay people don't tend to hate them the way Jesus wants. But I've never heard them warning people to stay away from people who know gay people. In fundamentalist terms this is known as "secondary separation."

Fundamentalists are supposed to have little to nothing to do with non-fundamentalists. But some insist that even if the people you associate with are born-again crazies you still have to shun them if they don't separate from "worldly" people and other such sinners. So, you separate from the sinners and from the people who associate with them.

Mr. Colson is your typical fundamentalist, finding evil enemies under every bed and behind every bush. Sad stuff, really.

Who is John Galt?

Here is the trailer for the first part of Atlas Shrugged. I know that a lot of my readers will find this of interest. There is a sneak preview at Sony Studios and this poor blogger is trying to pull some strings to get an invite. If I manage I'll report immediately what I think.

Smearing Ayn: Rand, Nietzsche and the Purposeless Monster

One of the aspects about Ayn Rand that I have learned to really appreciate is how the mere mention of her name unhinges some rather extreme ideologues—both on the Right and the Left. But, I have to admit that those on the Left are more entertaining. Blinded by their faith in the omnipotent state, they attack all heretics with a zeal worthy of the extreme fundamentalist. And, like Ann “the Screech” Coulter, they typically resort to extreme vitriol and dishonesty to accomplish their goal.

The Right is tedious in their explosive dislike of Rand, they can only focus on her atheism, or the “sex” in her novels. Rather boring actually. But the Left becomes completely unhinged and begin spouting wild distortions of Rand’s ideas. For the most part you will learn nothing about Rand by reading what the Left has to say about her, but you do learn something about the mental stability, or the honesty, of the person “informing” you about the “truth” on Ayn Rand.

Recently someone sent me a question regarding this claim:

One reason why most countries don’t find the time to embrace her thinking is that Ayn Rand is a textbook sociopath. Literally a sociopath: Ayn Rand, in her notebooks, worshiped a notorious serial murderer-dismemberer, and used this killer as an early model for the type of “ideal man” that Rand promoted in her more famous books — ideas which were later picked up on and put into play by major right-wing figures of the past half decade, including the key architects of America’s most recent economic catastrophe….

So what, and who, was Ayn Rand for and against? The best way to get to the bottom of it is to take a look at how she developed the superhero of her novel, Atlas Shrugged, John Galt. Back in the late 1920s, as Ayn Rand was working out her philosophy, she became enthralled by a real-life American serial killer, William Edward Hickman, whose gruesome, sadistic dismemberment of 12-year-old girl named Marion Parker in 1927 shocked the nation. Rand filled her early notebooks with worshipful praise of Hickman. According to biographer Jennifer Burns, author of Goddess of the Market, Rand was so smitten by Hickman that she modeled her first literary creation — Danny Renahan, the protagonist of her unfinished first novel, The Little Street — on him.

For an indication of how unhinged this writer was, consider the title of this article : ATLAS SHRIEKED: AYN RAND’S FIRST LOVE AND MENTOR WAS A SADISTIC SERIAL KILLER WHO DISMEMBERED LITTLE GIRLS. (The capitals were in the original.)

One of the traits found online, when it comes to ideological fanatics, is that they tend to copy their material. They rarely do original investigations, they merely parrot what other ideologues have said. In one debate with fundamentalist Christians it was noticed that they were misquoting a book, and had the author’s name wrong. On Christian site, after Christian site, the exact same errors were repeated. The reason was simple: none of them had read the book. They were merely repeating what other fundamentalist crazies had said, on the assumption that their allies were all honest and truthful—which in their case is a particularly egregious error.

The individual I quoted above has made precisely the same error—and probably doesn’t care. His claims are based on an article at the left-wing site Alternet. The original author, that is the man who originated the deception, is Mark Ames. And he appears to base his claims entirely on a small section of the Jennifer Burns book. Not only does he exaggerate what Burns said, but since he didn’t actually see Rand’s Journals, he effectively makes claims out of context. His story got picked up by Leftists all over the net, each apparently competing with the rest to exaggerate or falsify the facts even more.

In many ways one sentence in this little tirade is accurate: “The best way to get to the bottom of it is to take a look at how she developed the superhero of her novel, Atlas Shrugged, John Galt.” But, if you do that, what you get is not a Rand who was promoting Hickman as her ideal man, but a repudiation of Hickman. Rand didn’t see Galt as a more perfected form of Hickman at all. Nor did she see Hickman as an ideal man. And, for good measure, the article pretty much distorts what Jennifer Burns said as well.

But, to put this in context, we have to start with Ayn Rand’s ideological journey. Rand was not born a full-fledged Objectivist, saying “A is A” as the first words in her crib. Rand’s ideas developed and morphed, and in some important ways, changed completely. Unfortunately, in her later life, Rand did tend to pretend that the views she held then were the views she had always held. That is not true. In fact, she changed substantially. But, for whatever reason—pride, ego, embarrassment—she refused to acknowledge the evolution in her ideas and, even worse, actively worked to hide them. That is one legitimate criticism of Rand, and there are more, but accuracy is the not the purpose of these smears.

Let us start by looking at a letter Rand wrote HL Mencken, July 28, 1934, “I hope you will understand my hesitation in writing to one whom I admire as the greatest representative of a philosophy to which I want to dedicate my whole life.” What this couldn’t possibly have referred to was Rand’s own philosophy of Objectivism. Mencken could not have been a “representative” of Objectivism since Objectivism didn’t exist. Rand was referring to her first philosophical beliefs—the ideas of Friedrich Nietzsche.

Mencken translated some of Nietzsche’s work into English and published them in the United States. Mencken, the atheist, was drawn to Nietzsche’s critique of Christianity, The Anti-Christ. Mencken wrote an introduction to the work and applauded this critique rather enthusiastically. It was to Mencken’s enthusiasm for Nietzsche that Rand was referring. Her early short stories did not project the ideal Randian man at all, they reflected the ideals of Nietzsche, ideals Rand would come to thoroughly repudiate.

Consider the somewhat famous passage from We the Living, which Rand removed from later editions. In a scene her main character, Kira, is arguing with the Andrei, a Communist. Andrei says to Kira: “I know what you’re going to say. You’re going to say, as so many of our enemies do, that you admire our ideals, but loathe our methods.” Kira, however says quite the opposite: “I loathe your ideals. I admire your methods. If one believes one’s right, one shouldn’t wait to convince millions of fools, one might just as well force them. Except that I don’t know, however, whether I’d include blood in my methods.” Kira goes on to express contempt for the common man.

Yet, later in life, Rand expressed frequent and sincere admiration for the so-called “common man,” something Burns made quite clear in her book, and Ayn was a staunch opponent of the initiation of force. These are not contradictions, they are Rand at two very different times in her life, with two very different philosophical systems. The first does not represent Rand’s system at all, but that of Nietzsche. But, even in this exchange, we see some of Rand’s own ideas starting to emerge, for instance, when she criticizes “the claim that man must live for the state.”

We the Living was Rand’s first novel and it expressed her views at the time of the writing it. By 1959 there was a different Ayn Rand and when the book was republished for the first time, she edited out passages she felt would mislead her readers, bringing the story more in line with her own philosophy.

To find the influence of Nietzsche on Rand one must turn to her unpublished short stories, or to her writings on possible stories. There is one clearly Nietzschean character in her later novels, but he wouldn’t make Rand sound nearly as evil as her detractors wish to do. I will get to him shortly.

We need to look at Rand’s Journals to see what she actually said about Hickman. Did she worship him so profusely, as her attackers pretend? Was he really the model for her ideal character?

The story she was considering writing was tentatively called The Little Street. All this was published by Rand’s estate in her Journals in 1996, long before Jennifer Burns wrote her book. Rand's estate revealed the information, not Burns. The protagonist in the The Little Street would be Danny Renahan. Remember all the information that is purported to show Rand’s evil views come from her own journals. Yet, what they don’t quote is Rand’s own appraisal of the relationship of Renahan to Hickman. She said that Renahan is “very far from him [Hickman], of course. The outside of Hickman, but not the inside. Much deeper and much more. 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.”

So, the very source for the accusation against Rand, quite clearly says that Hickman is not the model for Renahan, yet the critics say the complete opposite. Not very honest of them, is it?

Rand, in her Nietzschean phase considered protagonists who were criminals. In the Night of January 16th the main character is fashioned after Ivan Krueger, who apparently was a swindler. (It is interesting to note that the playwright, Terrance Rattigan, whom Rand admired, also used Krueger as the inspiration for his play Man and Boy.) Rand wrote that what interested her wasn’t that she thought these criminals were good or admirable. She wrote,

I do not think, nor did I think when I wrote this play, that a swindler is a heroic character or that a respectable banker is a villain. But for the purpose of dramatizing the conflict of independence versus conformity, a criminal—a social outcast—can be an eloquent symbol.”

This is what she said about, The Night of January 16th. But it is clearly what she also thought of The Little Street. Burns said that Rand: “…appeared to be drawing from both her own psychology and her recent readings of Nietzsche as she mused about the case and planned her story. She modeled Renahan along explicitly Nietzschean lines, not that ‘he has the true, innate, psychology of a Superman.” Burns says that Rand’s view was a “popular, if crude, interpretation of Nietzsche’s Übermensch."

This view, Rand’s estate said, showed up in her notes as her “most malevolent story. It provides a sharp contrast to the ‘benevolent universe’ premise” that she normally held. “Here she is bitterly denouncing a world that seems to have no place for heroism.” These untypical malevolent premises dominated the story plot. Burns says that “Rand’s bitterness was undoubtedly nurtured by her interest in Nietzsche. Judging from her journals, unemployment precipitated a new round of reading his work. Her notes filled with the phrases ‘Nietzsche and I think” and “as Nietzsche said.’”

In her journals Rand called Hickman “a purposeless monster.” She wasn’t worshipping him, she was looking to explain how he became the way he did. The very idea that Rand thought a “purposeless monster” was the personification of her ideal man is absurd. Yet none of these attacks on Rand mention Rand’s explicit condemnation of Hickman. Why? Because none of them read her Journals, they are ripping comments out of context from the Burn’s book and Burns didn’t mention that repudiation.

In her notes for The Little Street, Rand echoed a theme used by the Left. She wrote:

“Yes, he is a monster—now. But the worse he is, the worst must be the cause that drove him to this. Isn’t it significant that society was not able to fill the life of an exceptional, intelligent boy, to give him anything to out-balance crime in his eyes? If society is horrified at this crime, it should be horrified at the crime’s ultimate cause: itself. The worse the crime—the greater it’s guilt. What would society answer, if that boy were to say: “Yes, I’m a monstrous criminal, but what are you?”

Rand confessed in her notes that it sounds as if she is idealizing Hickman and that “he probably isn’t” like the Renahan character at all. She said that didn’t matter for her fictional story because she was writing about what could be, not what was. She wasn’t writing about Hickman but about a character that the Hickman case “suggested” to her.

Rand did not praise Hickman, but imagined a fictional story about an exceptional young man destroyed by the society around him. But Rand’s story, and her theory about the cause of the crime, is not uniquely Rand’s. There are eerie similarities to another crime, one in which a leading light of the American Left, stood up in a courtroom and made the same arguments that Rand made above. He, however, is lionized by the Left, while Rand is derided.

That case was the trial of Richard Loeb and Nathan Leopold, 18 and 19-years of age respectively. Leopold and Loeb were highly intelligent young men who lived in the Kenwood area of Chicago. Together they plotted the murder of 14-year-old Bobby Franks, believing they could create the perfect murder.

Their defender in court was the famous Clarence Darrow, whose ideals were quite different from Rand’s. Darrow blamed the crime on outside influences: “this terrible crime was inherent in his organism, and it came from some ancestor… Is any blame attached because somebody took Nietzsche’s philosophy seriously and fashioned his life upon it? … It is hardly fair to hang a 19-year-old boy for the philosophy that he was taught at the university.” Darrow argued the boys were created by the forces around them—a very Marxian premise. He says they were turned into killers by forces over which they had no control. Darrow said: “They killed [Franks] because they were made that way.” Time magazine said: “For twelve hours Clarence Darrow argued that the crime had been one of compulsion, that Nathan Leopold and Dickie Loeb could not have helped themselves. When he finished, tears were streaming down Judge Caverly's cheeks.” (Darrow's summation can be read here.)

Odd that Rand is viciously castigated for merely considering a fictional story using this defense but that Darrow, who actually used the defense for two young men who murdered a 14-year-old boy, is praised by the American Left. Rand’s consideration of a fictional story is enough to brand her as “scarier than the Manson family” while Darrow is endowed with sainthood. Consistency? Not, when Ayn Rand is the target.

As Rand prepared to write The Fountainhead she spent a great deal of time writing out her ideas and debating ideas with herself. The Fountainhead started out as a Nietzschean novel but ended a Randian one. The character who best represents Nietzsche in the book is Gail Wynand, while Howard Roark is the Randian man.

Wynand believes he held power over the masses, through his newspapers. When he decides to defend Roark he tells his workers: “We have always made public opinion, so let’s make it.” As philosopher Lester Hunt wrote:

The result is a complete disaster for Wynand. Instead of justifying his life, it reveals that his has been based in a mistake. When he violates the contract of an employee who refuses to cooperate in his campaign, by firing him, the union goes on strike. His campaign does nothing to help Roark's reputation. It simply adds another to the long list of popular objections to Roark: that he has for some inscrutable reason become "Wynand's pet." The circulation of the Banner goes into steep decline. Truckloads of copies come back unsold and unread. No sooner does Wynand turn sharply against public opinion than his power over it evaporates as if it had never existed. Finally, there is a meeting of the board of directors at which its members demand that he reverse his position to save the paper from complete ruin. Realizing that the campaign is impossible in principle, he authorizes Scarret to write an editorial denouncing Roark. In an internal monologue as he wanders aimlessly down the city streets, he reflects on the illusory appearance of his power. "You were a ruler of men," he says to himself. "You held a leash. A leash is only a rope with a noose at both ends." (716.) What he thought was power on his part was built on pandering to popular prejudices. Insofar as he had any power at all, it was wielded according to a certain strict condition: it had to be used to express those prejudices. As soon as this condition was violated, the appearance of power disappeared, and the reality became visible: it was his would-be subjects who had power over him.

"I made every one of those who destroyed me. There is a beast on earth, dammed safely by its own impotence. I broke the dam. ... I gave them the weapon. I gave them my strength, my energy, my living power." (719-20.)

Hunt recognizes that the failure of Wynand, the Nietzschean, and the success of Roark, the Randian man, was a direct challenge by Rand to the ideas of Nietzsche. He says Rand “unearths” issue that are “decisive ones for anyone who wants to apply Nietzschean ideas in the world we now live in, for anyone who wants to develop a usable Nietzsche.” Rand’s flirtation with Nietzsche was over by the time she finished The Fountainhead. She contrasted her ideal, Howard Roarke, with the Nietzschean Wynand. And it is Wynand who fails. In her screenplay for the film version of the novel she makes Wynand’s failure even more explicit as he commits suicide in despair. Roark, however, builds the world's tallest skyscraper, one Wynand had commissioned before his death.

By the time Rand started working on Atlas Shrugged, and the final view of her ideal man, John Galt, she had repudiated most the elements of Nietzsche from her own philosophy and her characters. The mature Rand was hardly Nietzschean at all. Prof. Stephen Hicks listed 68 areas of philosophical thought and contrasted the views of Nietzsche to those of Rand. He finds 51 areas of major disagreement and only 17 of agreement.

Of the agreements “11 of them are negative agreements, i.e., agreements that something is false or wrong —e.g., that God does not exist, that values are not intrinsic, that Plato and Kant are not wonderful human beings.” He contrasts their views on philosophy in several major areas thusly:

If we compare the agreements and disagreements by area of philosophy, then we get the following.

In metaphysics, Nietzsche and Rand agree on nothing except that God is dead and that consciousness is functional. They disagree on the priority of process, about identity, causality, teleology, and on a series of issues involving the extent to which (putting it in Objectivist terms) philosophers can do armchair science.

In epistemology, there is even less agreement between the two. Except for agreeing that philosophy is systematic and that intrinsicism is false, they disagree on everything from whether consciousness is identification, to the validity of sensation, concepts, logic, reason, and the universality of truth.

In human nature, there are no areas of agreement. (Though if we added traditional mind/body dualism to the table, then the two would agree that it's false.)

In ethics, there is significant agreement on two major issues: that morality should be in the service of life, and that altruism is anti-life. There are also substantial disagreements: about whether conflicts of interest are fundamental, about whether life is the standard of value, about whether power or happiness is the end, about whether sacrifice is good, about whether rationality is the primary virtue or even a virtue at all.

In politics, they agree that contemporary civilization has very significant problems, and that socialism and the welfare state are nauseating; but while Nietzsche has good things to say about aristocracy, slavery, and war and bad things to say about capitalism, Rand says the opposite.

Finally, they share the same exalted, heroic struggle sense of life—although Nietzsche adds to that a strong dose of bloodthirstiness that we do not find in Rand, while Rand regularly adds a strong dose of anger that we do not find in Nietzsche.

Hicks concludes that “differences between Nietzsche and Rand greatly outweigh the similarities.”

Rand herself dismissed Nietzsche, saying he was “a mystic and an irrationalist” preaching a “’malevolent’ universe” with an epistemology that “subordinates reason to ‘will,’ or feeling or instinct or blood or innate virtues of character.” She said he was a poet who “projects at times (not consistently) a magnificent feeling of man’s greatness.” But she condemned him for:

...replacing the sacrifice of oneself to others by the sacrifice of others to oneself. He proclaimed that the ideal man is moved, not by reason, but by his “blood,” by his innate instincts, feelings and will to power—that he is predestined by birth to rule others and sacrifice them to himself, while they are predestined by birth to be his victims and slaves—that reason, logic, principles are futile and debilitating, that morality is useless, that the “superman” is “beyond good and evil,” that he is a “beast of prey” whose ultimate standard is nothing but his own whim. Thus Nietzsche’s rejection of the Witch Doctor consisted of elevating Attila into a moral ideal—which meant: a double surrender of morality to the Witch Doctor.

The article I started with, said: “The best way to get to the bottom of it is to take a look at how she developed the superhero of her novel, Atlas Shrugged, John Galt.” That is absolutely correct. If we get to the bottom of how Rand developed her ideal man, John Galt, it isn’t found in the Nietzschean elements of Renahan, or in the “purposeless monster,” Hickman. When we follow Rand’s development of her main characters, what we see is an evolution away from Renahan. She moves from criminals, who express their individualism through rebellion against society, to men who express their individuality through acts of creation. Instead of individuals who try to subordinate others to their will, her heroes are those who seek to trade value for value. You won’t find the Renahan character in Galt at all. But, in Galt you will find the repudiation of Renanhan.

Sadly for Miss Rand’s critics, on this account they are woefully off base. They misrepresented what Rand did say about Hickman and what she meant for her character in The Little Street. They said she worshiped Hickman, when she actually called him a “purposeless monster,” a monster she knew was nothing like her character in The Little Street—a novel she never wrote, probably because it so violently clashed with her view of a benevolent universe.

Rand’s attackers ignore both the evolution of her ideal man in her stories, and the changes in her own views, in order to smear her. I am the first to say there are areas where Rand deserves criticism, but criticism that is honest. This attack on Rand was not honest, and unfortunately, so few of the criticisms I see directed against her are. Most barely reach above the level of the sneering, sniping hatred that we saw in the article quoted earlier. And that is too bad. An honest dialogue about the virtues and problems of Rand is needed, but you won’t get that from the Left (or the Right, I fear).

Note: The first lectures systematizing Rand's philosophy were The Basic Principles of Objectivism, by Nathaniel Branden. For the first time these lectures have recently been published in book form, as The Vision of Ayn Rand. They are an excellent place to start if one wishes to understand what Rand really said, as opposed to what she is purported to have said. They are available here.

Photos: 1.) Ayn Rand at the time she was writing her short stories. 2.) The "purposeless monster", William Hickman. 3.) Friedrich Nietzsche. 4.) Nathan Leopold, Clarence Darrow, Richard Loeb. 4.) Gary Cooper as Howard Roark in the film version of The Fountainhead.

This ought to be interesting!

We know that Ayn Rand's best-seller Atlas Shrugged has been an on-again, off-again film project for years now. Supposedly it is in one of those on-again phases except things are moving very, very slowly. You'd almost think it was a government project considering the snail's pace at which it is moving.

Well, Christianity Today magazine let something out that might cause some consternation among true fans of Ms. Rand. It discusses the career of Randall Wallace, a scriptwriter who has worked very closely with the anti-Semitic Mel Gibson. Wallace was a religion major at university and the magazine says he is a Christian -- I assume by evangelical standards since the publication is of the Billy Graham school of religion.

What may worry some Randians is that Mr. Wallace "recently finished a script for Atlas Shrugged" according to the magazine. Would this mean Mr. Wallace is likely to cut any of Rand's criticism of religion from the film because of his own views? I don't know. But I have to wonder how well a Christian could interpret the atheistic work of Ms. Rand. I figure the plot is difficult enough to whittle down to film length. But having the script in the hands of someone who, out of necessity has to oppose Rand's atheistic views, could pose some interesting problems.

The problems are potentially big for the production company. Rand's fan are notoriously prickly even under the best of circumstances. The necessity of editing out 80% of the plot for time constrainst will pretty much guarantee dissatisfaction among Objectivists. But if Mr. Wallace manages to censor out Rand's non-religious perspective, or even worse, smuggle in some religious overtones, they just might take a page out of Rand't other best-seller, The Fountainhead, and blow up the theater. Certainly pissing off the core audience is not a good way of making a profit. We'll see.

Barbara Branden on the 50th Anniversary of Atlas Shrugged

Barbara Branden, long-time friend of Ayn Rand and her biographer, discusses the publication of Rand's famous novel, Atlas Shrugged. The entire 16 minute talk can be viewed at TV Liberty. When you finish browse through TV Liberty for some of the other videos available. There is also an index on the right on side of the page. The blogspot software tends to sort by the first word even if that is part of a name so videos on Rand are sorted by Ayn. But once you know that the index otherwise follows the conventional rules.