When Newt Gingrich starts to be called a 'moderate' Republican, you know the crazy has been left out in the sun too long and is starting to go bad. Not the least of the signs of the GOP apocalypse is the cult of Ayn Rand and the John Galters. Forget who is John Galt for a second, and ask who was Ayn Rand?
Adam Kirsch over at the NY Times has a review of Anne C. Heller's new book “Ayn Rand and the World She Made.” At a time when the wingnuts are starting to turn on the Republican party for not being conservative enough, it's worth a look at one of their idols and philosophical fountainheads. (Sorry, couldn't resist.)
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Kirsch can't review the book without commenting on the cult that has grown up around Rand and her philosophy.
At “tea parties” and other conservative protests, alongside the Obama-as-Joker signs, you will find placards reading “Atlas Shrugs” and “Ayn Rand Was Right.” Not long after the inauguration, as right-wing pundits like Glenn Beck were invoking Rand and issuing warnings of incipient socialism, Representative John Campbell, Republican of California, told a reporter that the prospect of rising taxes and government regulation meant “people are starting to feel like we’re living through the scenario that happened in ‘Atlas Shrugged.’ ”
It's hard to comprehend how Rand's book "Atlas Shrugged" in which the heros are supposedly devoted to rational thought and seeing the world exactly as it is can be so enthusiastically taken as a bible by a political movement that is increasingly hallucinatory.
They readily identify themselves as a minority in this country – a minority whose values are mocked and attacked by a liberal media and class of elites. They also believe they possess a level of knowledge and understanding when it comes to politics and current events, one gained from a rejection of the mainstream media and an embrace of conservative media and pundits such as Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh, which sets them apart even more.
Heller's work brings to life the contradictions and flaws in Rand's own life, while also delineating how her work still has a compelling message for the kinds of people described above. Kirsch sums it up thusly:
Rand’s particular intellectual contribution, the thing that makes her so popular and so American, is the way she managed to mass market elitism — to convince so many people, especially young people, that they could be geniuses without being in any concrete way distinguished. Or, rather, that they could distinguish themselves by the ardor of their commitment to Rand’s teaching. The very form of her novels makes the same point: they are as cartoonish and sexed-up as any best seller, yet they are constantly suggesting that the reader who appreciates them is one of the elect.
Another take on it is that Rand also appeals to the kind of people who have an authoritarian need for strong leader types who are absolutely certain in their beliefs, with a convenient list of enemies to explain what's wrong about the world. Sara Robinson has done an excellent job writing up the psychology of authoritarianism with two series at Orcinus some time back: Cracks In The Wall and Tunnels and Bridges. Those two series explain much about the motivations and behavior of the wingnut tail now wagging the GOP dog.
And of course there's simple self interest for some. Rand's work glorifies selfishness, celebrates wealth, and worship's 'hero' businessmen among other types, especially in "Atlas Shrugged". And yet Rand herself had problems with theory versus fact. Kirsch again:
...In fact, as Heller shows, Rand had no more reverence for the actual businessmen she met than most intellectuals do. The problem was that, according to her own theories, the executives were supposed to be as creative and admirable as any artist or thinker. They were part of the fraternity of the gifted, whose strike, in “Atlas Shrugged,” brings the world to its knees.
For all of Rand's supposed devotion to intellectual rigor and rationality, there's an irrational element at the core of her philosophy and life. While she is seduced by the idea of strong leaders who exemplify the power of individualism, the corollary is that to have strong followers of those leaders doesn't seem to be possible in practice unless they yield up their own independence and judgement unquestioningly to those leaders. Again, Robinson lays out in detail how the process works here, here, and here. To quote one section from the second link:
We've all come up against these people, and have been totally confounded with their "my leader can do no wrong" attitude. They believe outrageous lies, and forgive all manner of sins. Democratic strategists keep trying to run campaigns that will reach these people on the basis of evidence and fact -- and are perplexed to find their attempts at education totally rebuffed. George Bush may have lied us into a war, wrecked our economy, saddled our great-grandchildren with debt, savaged the poor, and alienated the entire world; but he is Our Leader, and we will always take his word over anyone else's. We do not accept you as a legitimate authority. We don't care what you have to say, because you have no standing at all in our little world.
The above description certainly seems to apply to the teabagger crowd.
We're coping with a group of people who basically have so invested in their own fantasy of what reality should be, they have no interest in compromising or modifying their beliefs. Rand has provided them with a fictional world that validates their belief system. Kirsch picks up a quote from "Atlas Shrugged" that pretty well sums up the attitude of the GOP in Congress these days, the Beckians, and all the other teabaggers:
“We have no demands to present you, no terms to bargain about, no compromise to reach. You have nothing to offer us. We do not need you.”
ADDENDUM: For all that Rand celebrated Businessmen as pragmatic rational thinkers who can save the world by simply believing in their own self interests, this Partially Clips cartoonencapsulates what that amounts to all too often in practice.
ADDENDUM: There's a great quote that puts Atlas Shrugged in perspective. Here it is in its entirety From Kung Fu Monkey:
There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.