Rand v. Wright—A Study in Opposites
Paul Ryan’s selection as Mitt Romney’s vice-presidential nominee is perhaps the most significant philosophical move in modern American politics. This has very little to do with Ryan himself, who by all impartial accounts is a bright, energetic, and wholesome human being, but rather because of the focus his selection has generated in the philosophy of Ayn Rand, called Objectivism.
Ryan, like other conservatives such as Alan Greenspan, can be classified as closet Randians because they know that to embrace her philosophy entirely and notoriously would have them run out of office, if not out of town. The masses that would prefer to have others pay for their drinks and live off the forced charity/redistribution of wealth coming from, where else? producers, revile Ayn Rand with a ferocity that makes Mary Madelyn O’Hair seem like America’s sweetheart.
Nevertheless, Rand has survived with her books being sold in the millions more 50 years after they were written. I wonder how long Obama’s allegedly ghost-written memoirs will be with us.
Ryan, even with his carefully couched qualifications, was clearly influenced by Rand, which makes a comparison between her and Obama’s inspirations both relevant and legitimate.
Let’s start with Bill Ayers and Jeremiah Wright, Obama’s buddies.
Rand loved America with all her heart and mind. As a refugee from Russia and its collectivist/communist/fascist state, she revered freedom, free enterprise, and capitalism, that reverence being based on a first-hand understanding of and experience with their opposites.
Ayers and Wright damned America because of its challenges that those two ciphers knew they were incapable of meeting.
There was not a racist bone in Rand’s body. Wright, in particular, is racist and virtually nothing else.
Rand abhorred violence and characterized retaliation against the initiation of force as its only legitimate use. We all know how Ayers felt about violence.
So, once again, Ayn Rand is back in the news. Let’s hope that the hoary excoriation of her philosophy will cause independent thinkers to question the sources of this denunciation and to wonder how a woman so vigorously reviled could have predicted so accurately, decades ago, exactly the form, shape, and taste of the pickle America finds itself in today.
© Gordon Osmond 2012
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Comments
Did they eat genuine imitation fresh frozen jumbo shrimp, perhaps in the blinding light of night or darkness of day? Were they gigantic midgets? Tiny Goliaths?
Ayn Rand didn't predict our current disarray -- she prescribed the poison that brought it on. Greenspan was a member of her cult.
If you have an affinity for meth addicts, perhaps you should go to a rehab clinic to find your next "philosopher." While there, enjoy a drink from a plastic glass.
PJOR
You're probably the only person on the planet who would deny that Russia (Soviet Union) was communist, collectivist, and fascist. But I forget--you have your own special dictionary.
Communism and fascism are polar opposites. It's you, of course, who doesn't know what the words mean.
No person with a desire to be taken seriously would claim the Soviet Union was communist and fascist.
I doubt you'd even find a Hindu Christian that would offer that oxymoron, even if they're from Oxymoronica.
However, it would be enjoyable to see you explain communist fascism. If you quit typing mid-sentence we'll know your head imploded. Vacuum is a powerful force.
Au contraire, Paul. They are, in fact, sides of the same coin. They both subject the individual to the control of the state. If that's a bit too conceptual and abstract for you, look it up.
Anybody who knows much about the 29-year reign of Stalin knows that he wasn't animated by left-wing ideology. He and Hitler grudgingly admired each other, because they used the same kinds of tactics to preserve Mother Russia and Father Germany.
Rated, and thanks for being less laconic than usual.
You're a hoot.
Communism promises to replace the state and its establishment of industrialists and private enterprise with collectively owned enterprises and a cradle-grave system of social services. No Private Enterprise. (See previous sentence)
Fascism preserves the rule of a strong State and the traditional establishment of industrialists and private enterprise, even going as far to privatize what were once public services. Few, if any, public social services, an elevation of privatization. A very conservative arrangement.
Both fascism and communism are in conflict with liberalism -- the American system -- but they are in no way the same.
You're confusing the right-wing system of authoritarianism with a leftist version of (supposed) political and economic egalitarianism and that with a rightist version of Strong State political and economic elitism.
Authoritarianism does fit a Rightist template, and can never be described as Leftist.
Maybe communism and fascism are the same in Gordon's Hooterville Skul of Political/Economic Theory, but you're alone in that.
That's grade school thinking, Gordie. At least it is before a student gets beyond 6th grade.
Stick with what ya know. This ain't what ya know. Ya know?
For example, Ted Frier, has posted some endless something, which he augments with comments that are almost as long. I have no time to read them, but it's pretty clear that collectivist critiques of Rand will eventually, and surely before November, cause independents to yearn for a clean, rational philosophy that may eventually result in leaders who know how to lead and, more important, when not to.