Ayn Rand and the criminalization of everyday life
A few of my friends are avid fans of Ayn Rand, especially of Atlas Shrugged. As I’ve explained in this space and elsewhere, I am not. I’ve tried the book a few times and just couldn’t get through it. I did see the first two installments of the recent movie version and rather liked them, though I know I am not supposed to.
At bottom, I think that Whittaker Chambers was right about Rand in the devastating review he wrote of Atlas Shrugged in National Review shortly after the book appeared.
Yet Chambers was right not only about Rand’s shortcomings — that’s what people remember about his review — but also about what she got right. “[A] great many of us,” he wrote, “dislike much that Miss Rand dislikes, quite as heartily as she does.” That fact disposes “us” — i.e., us conservatives who share Rand’s belief in self-reliance and who dislike big government and the nanny state just as much as she did — to endorse some of what Rand advocates. Hence, for example, 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.
I’ve found that as I get older I become more and more libertarian, which I suppose means in part that I am more and more sympathetic to John Galt. Why? I’m sure there are several reasons. One is the increasing bureaucratization of life in this country, the progress of what Tocqueville called “Democratic Despotism,” i.e., the insidious proliferation of rules and regulations (and their concomitant rulers and regulators) that we’re told are being put in place for the commonweal but in fact are really put in place to squelch individual liberty and solidify state control over our lives.
Examples are too numerous to linger over: imagine a country in which legislators tell you can no longer buy incandescent light bulbs but must henceforth purchase ones that contain a toxic substance and give off a sepulchral, Eastern-European-under-Communism sort of grimy light. Imagine a country in which other legislators (or perhaps they’re the same ones) are proposing to fit all new cars with a “black box” that will record where you’ve been, how fast you got there, and perhaps even what you had to drink before you got behind the wheel.
Amazing that we put up with it, no?
And this is the proverbial tip of the iceberg.
It looks like we’ll have to wait four years to see a slowdown in the production of invasive laws. The latest? Pass gun control and presto – no more problems with mass murders and crime! It’s magical. Scarier still is the potential of a national ID card which, for some reason I cannot convince friends of the inherent danger therewith.
What will we get after the next four years? Either a Democrat or republican president will follow. Neither will back down from more regulation. Remember, it was Richard Nixon who authorized the EPA by executive order. That has created more criminals than all ten commandments combined.
A slowdown in our loss of liberty? Is that something to look forward to?
Will the Republicans start eliminating regulatory agencies and revoking some of these invasive laws? Will they try to amend the Constitution to create a House of Repeal or put an expiration date on every Federal law? Of course not, they will just leave the bad ones in place and pass new ones at a slower rate.
Like Mr. Kimball, I have become a Libertarian.
As former KGB officer Peter Deriabin once wrote about life in the Soviet Union, “There are only three kinds of people: Those who were in prison, those who are in prison and those who will be in prison.”
I begin to see merit in the populist obsession with subjecting our congressmammals to the full panoply of the laws and regulations they enact and authorize. If it did not result reform, it might at least result in justice.
In case you don’t remember John, “we” don’t pass laws. It’s those congresspeople you would have subjected to the same laws as we are who pass the laws. They don’t intend to pass the one you would like. If you think you can cure the problem with an election, guess again. Look who we just elected for president. We’re screwed John, and that’s the whole story in a nutshell.
If David Gregory wasn’t even indicted, what makes you think a Congresscritter would even be investigated?
I also find Rand unreadable.
But who is better? Who sets out the basis of conservative freedom in an engaging literary and readable way, and also let’s say in the last 60 years.
Any recommendations?
Thomas Sowell: basic economics and the vision of the anointed
Enough said.
I have “The Vision of the Anointed”. It echoes many of Ayn Rand’s insights, but is crippled by its basic “liberal versus conservative” framework, which is at best not nearly as fundamental and effective at explaining current *and pre-1776* events as the “moral individualism versus collectivism” framework — and at worst, serves not to illuminate, but to obfuscate.
The genius of Ayn Rand is the magnitude of her vision. One has to look for more than simple political realities that are observable on a daily basis. If one wants to understand the causes of these events and source of the ideas behind them Ayn Rand has the answers. Reading Ayn Rand is not difficult if your motivation is to understand instead of reinforce what you think you already know.
You are man of immense patience and forbearance. And subtlety.
I salute you.
Carmen Ortiz and her lackey Steve what his name are thugs and murderers just as surely as if they had put a gun to Schwartz’ head and pulled the trigger. He wasn’t one of MyPeeps Holders’ “my people,” so its just another little victory on the road to “revenge on your enemies.”
Ham Sandwich Nation? Seriously? No, I won’t be clicking on such drivel.
Huh? You are familiar with the expression “a decent prosecutor could get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich” are you not? No?
Dearest Sam, What wonderful leftist sentiment – i.e., drivel.
Oops Sam, you probably broke some law by not clicking on it. I’m sure I broke one by reading it.
Of course Atlas Shrugged was crap as written. The medium was utterly inadequate for the message. Ayn Rand was writing myth, not fiction. Her characters were meant to be philosophical archetypes, not living beings. The novel is the wrong platform for that sort of thing. Someday, some bold soul is going to make an opera out Atlas shrugged, and it will be a master work to rival Wagner’s Ring Cycle.
Speaking of which, here’s one way to make high-capacity magazines.
Also to the point:
Now is the time to draw YOUR line in the sand!
There are quite a few gems like that in Rand’s Atlas Shrugged. You might look at Fransisco’s “money speech” to. A masterful putdown of the Left’s “money is the root of all evil” nonsense.
“For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs”–
(1 Timothy 6:10).
Right, it’s drivel; but it ain’t from the Left, brother.
Or rather, it’s from the other left.
Um, the speech was about the difference between “money is the root of all evil” and “the love of money is the root of all evil”. I think you missed the point.
Yup, lovin’ anything to excess is definitely the root of all evil.
We are in deep shit. Surrounded by: increasing pages of law, often written by staffers in regulations, and not by Congress, and prosecutorial discretion, we have little hope.
I know of a fellow. He converted his house into a greenhouse. Not the environmental friendly, low-energy house, but the greenhouse used for raising plants. Like 51 marijuana plants. When the police arrested him he had those and over 3 pounds of marijuana. But his brother is a County Family Court Commissioner. He was charged with 3 misdemeanors: disorderly conduct, resisting arrest and no marijuana sales tax stamps. He was also charged with 3 felonies for drug possession and distribution. He spent one night in jail and plead guilty to the misdemeanors, for which he is still paying less than $800 in fines. Two of the felonies were read in and dismissed. The third felony he plead guilty to, but only need complete AODA counseling over two years. He is White. Had he been Black and not so well connected he could have received over 25 years in prison.
This all happened in Wisconsin, which is one of the worse states in the Union for disparity between Black and White sentencing over drugs.
As they used to say on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles “Don’t try these tricks at home, we are professionals.” Unless your brother has the right job, walk the straight and narrow. What David Gregory did, and his consequences, are all too common.
Here is one possible solution. Any and all people in government responsible for making law and regulation must carry around a legible copy of all the laws and regulations currently enacted. You will need to work out the verbage, so they don’t shrink everything down to microfishe, but I think if you weighed the lawmakers down with all the laws they have already made, maybe they might get the idea.
The “yet” is here. Now we wait for it to worsen. Four years of Obama, perhaps a Dem House and a Dem Senate to go with it and a population largely insensate to it all. Say what you want about Rand, she saw it coming, she saw what was in place, the sick & phoney altruism,[goodness & virtue through government and force?], the effect of a growing collectivism on the minds and views of people, and memorably, the corruption of the media,[ was it Ellsworh Touhy?] But then she did see the beginnings of the Soviet experiment as well.
A very good post Mr. Kimball, but the warning signs were plain. Now we wait to see how bad t gets.
Harlan Ellison once said:
There are some woman writers you read, and you say, “OMG, she’s good for a woman writer!”, and there are others you read and say, “OMG she’s a good writer!” and then there’s Ayn Rand you read, and you say, “OMG!”
The quality of writing in “Atlas Shrugged” and “The Fountainhead” is outstanding. They are both lengthy and have didactic speeches, and the general prose style is somewhat dated today (and then there’s her Victorian sexual orientation). And I can’t speak to the quality of other stuff written by Rand. So anyway, it’s disappointing at least, when someone (especially who will find some of the content agreeable) says they “cannot read” these books.
This little speech of Dr. Ferris to Hank Rearden is one of the highlights of the book, but there are dozens more.
And “Going Galt” is going on strike, personally, not refusing to put up with whatever. Arguably it means setting yourself up outside of the system.
Still, “Atlas Shrugged” is intellectual porn, and in general you don’t want to try this stuff at home.
Just finish the dang book, Rog. It’s amazing how well it knits everything together into one integrated, cohesive understanding of all that’s occurring around us (and has been occurring since its publication.)
Then treat yourself to a copy of the “Virtue of Selfishness”. Don’t worry, it’s all non-fiction essays. I highly recommend “The Nature of Government” and “Man’s Rights” essays. A must reading for all “conservatives”.
Yes, I do hope that you will give the book another chance.
It took me a couple of tries to make it through, and still there are concepts that I deeply disagree with (especially the heavy-handed athiesm). Even so, these drawbacks are utterly dominated by what Rand gets right.
For example, Part One follows Ellis Wyatt and his unreproducible (by the looters, at least) oil extraction methods. The last time I read the book, I realized that Rand plainly describes his technological edge — it’s fracking oil-sands.
She started writing this book in 1943, and yet, in many ways, it feels like it’s ripped from tomorrow’s headlines. Perhaps that’s of a piece with it’s strange mix of past and future, but this parallel struck me.
Later there’s Doctor Hendricks, and his speech about the objective, excellence-demanding nature of modern medicine versus the political, emotional distortions of single-provider care. Another out-of-time moment that gives me pause.
Please try reading it again. It’s quite alright if you get bogged down during Galt’s big speech, that really is too long and repetitive IMHO. Just skip to the last few pages of that chapter, you won’t miss much. =-)
I hear libertarians complain about the culture, the government and other voters. But, most of these people just complain and don’t do anything to perpetuate their civilization, like having their own children. That’s right, if you cared about your civilization, your country and something outside of yourself then you’d spend the time and money to get married and have a real family. I don’t know why childless people give a damn about anything since they have no real stake in the future.
I’ve found that as I get older I become more and more libertarian, which I suppose means in part that I am more and more sympathetic to John Galt. Why?
When the evidence speaks, you should listen. –Objectivism 101
You really should read it. It’s essential to understanding what’s going on. And you can’t really say that Chamber’s review was devastating unless you’ve read the book he was reviewing.
My favorite is when the government summons Rearden to Washington. Once he’s there, they give him a list of orders. What he’s supposed to produce at his factories, who he’s to buy from, who he’s to sell to and at what price, and time tables of production. Rearden looks it over and asks why don’t they just nationalize his business. They say, “Oh no Mr. Rearden. We believe in free enterprise.”
Ironic quoting Hume and Chambers together. The former divorced morality from reason; the latter, reason from analysis.
Conservatives will never “get” Ayn Rand because they share with the socialists (& Progressives) the same morality. Which is why, in every encounter or debate defending capitalism over the past 100 or so years, the conservatives have lost. And will continue to lose. One cannot defend an economic system based on rational self-interest–nor a political system founded on the (selfish) right to life, liberty & the pursuit happiness–while preaching a moral code based on self-sacrifice.
Moral consistency always wins–and will always win–over moral hypocrisy. Especially with the young.
Huzzah!
writeby is spot on. Roger shouldn’t be writing about a book he hasn’t read – or understood, apparently. Chambers’ smear attempt wasn’t worth writing let alone worth referring to so many years later. One of the things “Conservatives” don’t get is that the ethics of Christianity lead to socialism and communism in politics. And the “Libertarians” junking morality for a “Do As Thou Wilt” [non]standard of behavior won’t get you there either. Ayn Rand rejected both. In her own words, the root of the problem may be here (though her concepts of “salvation” and “soul” had nothing to do with the Biblical meaning):
The following excerpt is from a letter to Sylvia Austin dated July 9, 1946, in Letters of Ayn Rand, p. 287:
“There is a great, basic contradiction in the teachings of Jesus. Jesus was one of the first great teachers to proclaim the basic principle of individualism — the inviolate sanctity of man’s soul, and the salvation of one’s soul as one’s first concern and highest goal; this means — one’s ego and the integrity of one’s ego. But when it came to the next question, a code of ethics to observe for the salvation of one’s soul — (this means: what must one do in actual practice in order to save one’s soul?) — Jesus (or perhaps His interpreters) gave men a code of altruism, that is, a code which told them that in order to save one’s soul, one must love or help or live for others. This means, the subordination of one’s soul (or ego) to the wishes, desires or needs of others, which means the subordination of one’s soul to the souls of others.
This is a contradiction that cannot be resolved. This is why men have never succeeded in applying Christianity in practice, while they have preached it in theory for two thousand years. The reason of their failure was not men’s natural depravity or hypocrisy, which is the superficial (and vicious) explanation usually given. The reason is that a contradiction cannot be made to work. That is why the history of Christianity has been a continuous civil war — both literally (between sects and nations), and spiritually (within each man’s soul).”
Juries, juries, juries, petit and grand. Seems as though this original bulwark is anathema to the legal profession. I suspect because they’d trim their incomes substantially. Juries were the contituional middle finger to meddling and corrupt government.
Hey Roger Kimball, you’re a Nazi.
There, I’ve just reached the same height of eloquence & erudition as some ex-Soviet hack who once wrote a review of Atlas Shrugged.
When I was at the Pentagon I used to have to scrutinize the budget bills from the House and Senate to see what they were going to tell us to do.
Now, there were people whose job was to do that, but I got good enough at reading the congressional runestones that I would always find things they missed. I had talked to the staffers, been asked questions about various things, and so knew what to expect. The budget bills were always written in the most arcane and obtuse language, with pork funding squirreled away in the oddest of places.
As a result of that experience and the many others I had working in the DC environment, I came to realize that if you were independently wealthy and could devote 40 hours a week to studying Federal regulations and what they meant to you personally, in terms of requirements, costs and prohibitions – well, you could not do it. It would be a task like that of Sisyphus. You would never get done; it would be so immense and changing so fast in so many complex ways you would never figure it out.
And it is now much worse. They are now willing to actively admit that they are keeping things from you that affect you directly. “We have to pass the bill so you can find out what is in it.”
Complying with Federal regulations is odious. Understanding them or even discovering them is utterly impossible. There is only one choice: Ignore all you can get away with; conceal what you can’t.
Roger, one cannot make a statement like that and not explain one’s self. I’m not a sophisticated political person, however; Atlas Shrugged is the most powerful book I have ever read aside from the King James Bible!!!
If you haven’t read it then I consider you an illiterate when it comes to economics and the running of our country! Sad! Sad! Sad!
Where is John Galt today!!!!! He’s in millions and millions of hearts worldwide.
I think we should abandon the Repulbican and Libertarian parties and found a new party today and call it the John Galt Party. What do you think people”
Where is John Galt today!!!!! He’s in millions and millions of hearts worldwide.
I think we should abandon the Repulbican and Libertarian parties and found a new party today and call it the John Galt Party. What do you think people?
Even if you find Rand unreadable I’d strongly suggest her “Conservatism: An Obituary” (http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=reg_ar_conservatism) excerpted here (http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-01-23/socialism-europe-has-arrived-our-shores#comment-3180179).
With the exception of her dated references to Soviet Communism her thoughts are, perhaps, even more lucid & relevant today than they were over a half century ago when she set them forth.
The Fountainhead is far superior to Atlas Shrugged simply because Atlas Shrugged is redundant. Many of Rand’s concepts and analysis are spot on, but she would have done much better to tell the story in a more streamlined fashion. Much of Rearden’s speech at the end can be skipped because by then you’ve already read it at least once. Repeating the same point over and over again becomes annoying, rather than proving the point. The writing is boring and old, rather than interesting or fresh, not because the ideas have faltered but because they’ve become familiar. The reader is left with the impression that her ideas are tired because she won’t let them stand once, rather, she must berate you repeatedly with the same concepts. Sometimes she even uses that same exact words in communicating the same idea multiple times throughout the novel, further weakening her impact. The story would be more effective if told in a more streamlined fashion.
It should be remembered that Rand was open to anyone practicing a altruism of one’s own. If you wished to give, to sacrifice even, so be it and go to it. Just leave others alone to thier own actions, and above all, leave government and force out of it.
As she once said,”no one will stop you”. But of course the degraded altruism of today is focused entirely on government, with millions taking personal credit. Absurd!
“… I think that Whittaker Chambers was right about Rand in the devastating review he wrote of Atlas Shrugged in National Review shortly after the book appeared.”
I have to respectfully disagree. I am a recent reader of Atlas Shrugged (2010). As a work of literature on the scale of Mark Twain, or Joseph Conrad, Ayn Rand is not a towering figure. There is a pulp fiction quality to the writing. Literary quality was not the point of the book. Since the book sold well, despite the literary quality, something else must be occurring.
I agree with Whitaker Chamber’s literarty criticisms of Atlas Shrugged.
Yet W Chamber’s goes beyond literary cristisim. He is also stridently criticial of the book’s moral philosophy claiming for the book a materialism viewpoint comparable to Marxism. W Chamber could not be more wrong, in error; which brings into question W Chamber’s ability to differentiate moral view.
My interpretation of the so called materialism which W Chambers identifies in Altas Shrugged the result of Ayn Rands view of what is a man’s “good life”. Ayn Rand advocates “creating” value as the purpose and source of happiness in man’s life. What is value, what the creator believes in value and what society is will to pay for what is created.
Social opinion is not relevant other than what price the society will pay for what is created. Readen Steel is better than previously manufactured steel despite social opinions to the contrary. The dollar sign is the symbol of created value, not the materialist consumption. The good life of a man and woman is to create value, have ownership of that value, and exchange that value for what is created by other men.
And of course there is no satisfaction when creating something not of value. Such a society is where man is directed what to create, does not own what he creates, cannot choose what to exchange his value for another person’s creation. Sounds like Marxism to me.
What is missing in Ayn Rand’s books is a sense of t uncertainty in the world. Judgment can be wrong; mistakes are made by both the powerful and the weak. Yet this uncertainty in no way impacts her conclusions.
How W Chamber’s equates creating value as equivalent to Marxist materialism I do not understand. Materialism, making stuff for consumption is the focus of Marxism; the individual creating his perception of value is the focus of Ayn Rand. The two are not the same. Another way to say the difference, Marxism does not recognize the creative value of any single person. Ayn Rand recognizes value only comes from the individual’s effort to create.
Anyway, W Chambers made a mistake equality Marxist materialism with Ayn Rand views of the good life expressed in Atlas Shrugged.
What does the review show of W Chambers? Clearly he is an intelligent, well-educated man, by reputation and by the quality of writing in the review. He has a sense or desire for morality given his early attraction to communism, and his move to the Catholic Church. Also his assessment of Atlas Shrugged show a deep concern for morality.
Yet despite W Chamber’s desire for a personal moral foundation, and despite his intelligence, he appears unable to see views distinctions in moral views and draw personal conclusions. If morality is color he is color blind, and must depend on other advocates to tell him what to believe.
I do not imply W Chambers is amoral, to the contrary, he desperately desires a moral view; he just cannot judge for himself what moral view to take. Such blindness explains his attraction to Communism, and with Communism’s disappointment, next to Catholicism, both exhibiting powerful unsubtle advocates.
With his inability to understand moral distinctions, W Chambers is unable to perceive the foundational point of Atlas Shrugged, which is not good versus evil, technocrats versus proletariat, even makers versus takers. The point of Atlas Shrugged is to exhibit what is the “good life” for a man; what is the point of a man’s being, and what is the logical conclusion if such a life is denied.
W Chamber’s could not see the point of the book, and as a result wrote a chaotic, and sadly pointless review.
[My comment above is filled with typographcial errors below is a clean version}
“… I think that Whittaker Chambers was right about Rand in the devastating review he wrote of Atlas Shrugged in National Review shortly after the book appeared.”
I have to respectfully disagree. I am a recent reader of Atlas Shrugged (2010). As a work of literature on the scale of Mark Twain, or Joseph Conrad, Ayn Rand is not a towering figure. There is a pulp fiction quality to the writing. Literary quality was not the point of the book. Since the book sold well, despite the literary quality, something else must be occurring.
I agree with Whitaker Chamber’s literary criticisms of Atlas Shrugged.
Yet W Chamber’s goes beyond literary criticism. He is also stridently critical of the book’s moral philosophy claiming for the book a materialism viewpoint comparable to Marxism. W Chamber could not be more wrong, in error; which brings into question W Chamber’s ability to differentiate moral view.
My interpretation of the so called materialism which W Chambers identifies in Atlas Shrugged the result of Ayn Rand’s view of what is a man’s “good life”. Ayn Rand advocates “creating” value as the purpose and source of happiness in man’s life. What is value, what the creator believes in value and what society is will to pay for what is created.
Social opinion is not relevant other than what price the society will pay for what is created. Readen Steel is better than previously manufactured steel despite social opinions to the contrary. The dollar sign is the symbol of created value, not the materialist consumption. The good life of a man and woman is to create value, have ownership of that value, and exchange that value for what is created by other men.
And of course there is no satisfaction when creating something not of value. Such a society is where man is directed what to create, does not own what he creates, cannot choose what to exchange his value for another person’s creation. Sounds like Marxism to me.
What is missing in Ayn Rand’s books is a sense of t uncertainty in the world. Judgment can be wrong; mistakes are made by both the powerful and the weak. Yet this uncertainty in no way impacts her conclusions.
How W Chamber’s equates creating value as equivalent to Marxist materialism I do not understand. Materialism, making stuff for consumption is the focus of Marxism; the individual creating his perception of value is the focus of Ayn Rand. The two are not the same. Another way to say the difference, Marxism does not recognize the creative value of any single person. Ayn Rand recognizes value only comes from the individual’s effort to create.
Anyway, W Chambers made a mistake equality Marxist materialism with Ayn Rand views of the good life expressed in Atlas Shrugged.
What does the review show of W Chambers? Clearly he is an intelligent, well-educated man, by reputation and by the quality of writing in the review. He has a sense or desire for morality given his early attraction to communism, and his move to the Catholic Church. Also his assessment of Atlas Shrugged shows a deep concern for morality.
Yet despite W Chamber’s desire for a personal moral foundation, and despite his intelligence, he appears unable to see views distinctions in moral views and draw personal conclusions. If morality is color he is color blind, and must depend on other advocates to tell him what to believe.
I do not imply W Chambers is amoral, to the contrary, he desperately desires a moral view; he just cannot judge for himself what moral view to take. Such blindness explains his attraction to Communism, and with Communism’s disappointment, next to Catholicism, both exhibiting powerful unsubtle advocates.
With his inability to understand moral distinctions, W Chambers is unable to perceive the foundational point of Atlas Shrugged, which is not good versus evil, technocrats versus proletariat, even makers versus takers. The point of Atlas Shrugged is to exhibit what is the “good life” for a man; what is the point of a man’s being, and what is the logical conclusion if such a life is denied.
W Chamber’s could not see the point of the book, and as a result wrote a chaotic, and sadly pointless review.