Ayn Rand Was A Selfish Little Slut, Wasn't She?

From The New Criterion:

Commenter #4, quoted above, mentions Whittaker Chambers’s famously devastating review of Atlas Shrugged, which appeared in National Review in 1957. Among the many interesting things about it was Chambers’s acknowledgment of the fact that “a great many of us [conservatives] dislike much that Miss Rand dislikes, quite as heartily as she does.” Statism in all its many forms, the welfare state, liberal sanctimoniousness, the culture of dependency: most conservatives are at one with Rand in regarding them with a jaundiced eye. And it is precisely this element in Rand’s world view—her rejection of what Tocqueville called Democratic Despotism—that has given her work a new lease on life among “tea partiers” and others who challenge the newly regnant statism in America. Hence the widespread popularity of Rand’s character John Galt and sympathy for “going Galt,” i.e., Just Saying No to the many violations of personal liberty perpetrated by an omnivorous, socialistically inclined state.

But to say that one is wary of statism or that one is a champion of capitalism and limited government is not to say that one is a follower of Ayn Rand. Why? There are many reasons, including the cultlike intolerance of criticism that prevails among her more extreme disciples. There is also something that touches the core of Rand’s view of the world: her apotheosis of selfishness. It was always, we suspect, Rand’s effort to make a “virtue of selfishness” (as she puts it in the title of a collection of essays) that accounted for a large part of her appeal. The shocking quality of advocating something so widely deprecated guaranteed an eager audience. Most human beings do not need special encouragement to be selfish. They come by it naturally enough. How welcome, then, to stumble upon a writer of long books who, far from criticizing selfishness, as everyone from your mother on down has done, tells you that you should be as selfish as possible.

Comments

[Noumenon]

Since you don't mind ugly language like "slut," I guess you won't mind me logging in to call you a jackass.

[Tom McMahon]

No, not really. "Slut" was a bit over the top.

[Noumenon]

Then we're buddies again!

[Henk Rearden]

"Atlas Shrugged" did more to illustrate the folly of socialism than any other popular book did. The masses, if they bother to turn off Oprah and American Idol long enough to even read a book, at least get a teachable moment from the Atlas Shrugged narrative.

I do agree that Rand's followers are often times just pompous pseudo-intellectuals who probably need to get out more often, if only they could find a date. But Rand doesn't have to be a perfect person for Atlas Shrugged to be a darned good work, and, let's face it guys, none of us could have written a book that good, powerful, and enduring. The followers of "Austrian Economics" are even more dogmatically deranged than the Rand disciples, yet their writers also made important contributions to the notions of freedom.

Save your venom for the socialists....I can assure you, they're saving plenty of it up for YOU.

[Mohamed]

I'm inclined to agree with you.
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