(Actually in about 1000 words. My instructor in Law Enforcement Ethics is about the same age I am -- mid-50s -- but never heard of Ayn Rand or Atlas Shrugged. So, I wrote this for her.)
Ayn Rand
By Michael E. Marotta
Ayn (rhymes with “mine”) Rand was a pop figure of the 1960s. Her fame actually takes root in the late 1940s. Before she died in 1982, she saw one of her pupils, Alan Greenspan, secure in a nice job. Greenspan had written two essays for Ayn Rand’s 1967 anthology, Capitalism: the Unknown Ideal. In 1991, a survey by the Library of Congress and the Book of the Month Club found that Ayn Rand’s works – principally her novel, Atlas Shrugged – ranked second only to The Bible in having “influenced” the thinking of those polled.
Ayn Rand – born Alissa Rosenbaum in St. Petersburg, Russia, in 1905 – considered herself a novelist. Her experience included many screenplays for Cecil B. deMille among others in Hollywood. She wrote a play, The Night of January 16th that achieved some notoriety in 1934. The play centers on a murder, but the evidence is evenly stacked. Jurors selected from the audience participate in the final act. Rand’s 1943 novel, The Fountainhead, was made into a movie in 1947. It starred Gary Cooper, Patricia Neal, and Raymond Massey. Rand wrote the screenplay. She described the theme of that novel as being “individualism versus collectivism, not in society, but in man’s soul.”
Rand said that in order to write her fiction, she had to define her philosophy. That philosophy became known as Objectivism. It achieved some status as a cult in the 1960s, and it continues today. The Center for Objectivist Studies, the Ayn Rand Institute and The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies are some reflection of her continuing influence as a philosopher and novelist. I participate actively in SOLO, the Sense of Life Objectivists at www.solohq.com, a site for blogs and other posts.
The basic assertions of Objectivism are these:
• Reality is real. Existence exists. There is an objective universe out there, independent of the observer’s hopes, fears, or wishes.
• Reason works. The human mind evolved to deal with physical reality. Our senses filter gross reality correctly and accurately. Any misperceptions are in the mind, and can be corrected with reason.
• Egoism is the only ethical morality. We do not share stomachs. We do not share minds. Each of us must stand or fall by our own perceptions and conceptualizations. We can and do learn from each other, but the discovery of facts and the creation of new ideas must be individual efforts. Moreover, no individual has the right to seek values from another by force or fraud.
• Capitalism is the only moral social structure. Taxation is theft. To be moral, government must be limited to police (and military) and courts of law. Short of force and fraud, whatever each of us freely consents to is our own business.
• The purpose of art is self-reflection. Romantic Realism is appropriate for those who believe in their own self-worth. Typical would be the works of Nathaniel Hawthorne and Jack London, or movies such as Casablanca and Treasure of the Sierra Madre.
Rand’s opus magnum, Atlas Shrugged garnered instant notoriety in 1958. Rand chose the publisher (Random House) and orchestrated the publicity campaign herself. In 45 years, it has sold 5 million copies. Rand wrote an epilogue for one of the early reprintings, which continues to close the book: “I trust that no one will tell me that men such as I write about don’t exist. That this book has been written – and published – is my proof that they do.” Atlas Shrugged is the story of a man who shuts off the motor of the world. The heroes (and villains) are engineers, scientists and industrialists.
Born in 1905, writing in the 1950s, Rand spun an idealized history of the American robber barons from Vanderbilt and Carnegie to Ford and Edison. Convicted of securities fraud in 1990, financier Michael Milken was sent many copies of Atlas Shrugged while in prison. Upon his release, he said that if he had read the book before he went to jail, he never would have gone to jail. Atlas Shrugged includes a courtroom scene in which an industrialist accused of monopoly tells a panel of judges that they have no right to try him. More recently, Objectivists have rallied behind Bill Gates and Martha Stuart.
Alan Greenspan is not alone is being an admirer of Ayn Rand’s novels. Ed Snider, former owner of the Philadelphia Flyers and now of Comcast/Spectacor is another. Steve Ditko (creator of Spiderman), Frank Miller (creator of Batman: the Dark Knight) Jimmy Wales (Wikipedia), investigative reporter John Stossel, and the rock band, Rush credit Ayn Rand with shaping their personal philosophies. This is not unique. Mel Gibson is a born-again Catholic. John Travolta and Tom Cruise are Scientologists. Many people believe in “something.” Unlike those other “somethings,” Objectivism is not widely publicized. That is odd considering that Ayn Rand’s books have cumulatively sold over 25 million copies.
Part of the reason is that unlike other cults, Objectivism has no center. In fact, as a philosophy closely reflective of Nietzschean individualism, that is not surprising. Objectivists routinely criticize all but the most basic principles of their philosophy – and even some of those. As an Objectivist, for instance, I question the need for government police and courts. Why not have the free market operate in all areas of human action? That is without a doubt a violation of an Objectivist tenet, and yet, one which is arguable within an Objectivist context. Consequently, unlike Catholicism and Scientology, Objectivism remains a personal philosophy shared by individuals.
Also, Ayn Rand’s novel, The Fountainhead, speaks directly to the heart of any Objectivist who would become popular. The novel tells the story of two architects, the modernist Howard Roark and the eclecticist Peter Keating. Handsome and likeable, Keating gives people what they think their friends want – and he is destroyed. Holding resolutely and indefatigably to his own standards, Howard Roark gets the girl. Therefore, popularity seldom drives Objectivists to seek and gain publicity, though some do just that as a consequence of their business plans.
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