Questions about Rand

Perhaps the weirdest thing on the right is tolerance for the bloviating novelist Ayn Rand.

The philosophical problem with Ayn Rand is not so much her views, but that she does not argue for them. She asserts them, but when counterarguments are made there is no response. Her philosophy, such as it is, has attractive elements. Facing Soviet collectivism her praise of the individual was needed, but it comes at too high a price.

The practical problem with Rand and Objectivism is that the worldview is unworkable without being wicked.

Can the old or despised minority groups really take comfort in objectivism? The muddle of Anglo-American politics does not make for easy charts in political science class, but it has allowed for a great deal of freedom combined with a basic social safety net. We are always tempted to go too far in one direction or another, but we also have recognized that Aristotle was right: politics is not a science, but an art. Ideologies of all kinds sound good in theory, but usually kill a great many people put in practice.

What would happen to the weak if Rand triumphed? We know this: Rand herself would not have cared.

Rushing from the error of collectivism to the equally noxious error of barbaric individualism was a futile attempt to solve one vice with another vice. Putting Lenin and Rand in a room would not give us Baby Moderation, but a bloody room.

Rand dismissed religion of course as opposed to “reason,” but was unreasonable in doing so. She never considered Aquinas let alone modern philosophers of religion who found her views naive.

Rand’s Utopian view that if we were all selfish enough, we would all flourish as human beings is contradicted by her own ugly and unhappy life.

I have not argued against Rand just stated my opinion with a few reasons for it, of course, but I do wonder at her popularity. She is not a great writer, she is not a great thinker, she says nothing new, and her views are not workable.

Sometimes the enemy of my enemy is not my friend.