What Liberals Don’t Understand About Ayn Rand

Ayn Rand, the Russian-born writer and self-styled philosopher
who died three decades ago, is back in the news as a favorite
author of Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan. In
recent years, the passionately individualist, pro-capitalist Rand
has been embraced as a champion of freedom by many conservatives
and libertarians, and denounced as a prophet of greed and
narcissism by many liberals. Yet, if Rand admirers tend to ignore
the flaws of her vision, her detractors reduce her to grotesque
caricature—and invoke her popularity as proof of right-wing
nuttiness.

One major misconception is that Rand worshipped the rich and saw
moneymaking as life’s highest goal. In fact, most wealthy
characters in her novels are pathetic, repulsive, or both:
businessmen fattened on shady deals or government perks, society
people who fill their empty lives with luxury. (There are also
sympathetic poor and working-class characters.)

In The Fountainhead, Rand’s first bestseller (and best
novel), the hero, architect Howard Roark, describes “the man whose
sole aim is to make money” as a variety of “the second-hander” who
lives through others, seeking only to impress with his wealth.
Roark himself turns down lucrative jobs rather than sacrifice his
artistic integrity, at one point finding himself penniless.

Rand extolled “selfishness,” but not quite in its common
meaning. (To some extent, she was using the now-familiar
confrontational tactic of turning a slur against a stigmatized
group—in this case, true individualists—into a badge of pride.)
Roark’s foil, the social-climbing opportunist Peter Keating, gives
up both the work and the woman he truly loves for career
advancement. Most people, Rand says, would condemn Keating as
“selfish”; yet his real problem is lack of self.

To Rand, being “selfish” meant being true to oneself, neither
sacrificing one’s own desires nor trampling on others. Likewise,
Rand’s stance against altruism was not an assault on compassion so
much as a critique of doctrines that subordinate the individual to
a collective—state, church, community, or family.

Was Rand’s individualism too radical? Yes. Her hostility to the
idea of any moral obligation to others led her to argue that, while
helping a friend in need is fine, doing so at the expense of
something it hurts you to give up is “immoral.” In her fiction,
even private charity as a vocation is despised; so, mostly, is
family. Rand made little allowance for the fact that some people
cannot help themselves through no fault of theirs, or that much
individual achievement is enabled by support networks.

Yet great insights can come from flawed thinkers. Rand’s
anti-altruism tirades often turn their target into a straw man, but
she is right that the knee-jerk habit of treating altruistic goals
as noble has aided evil—for instance, blinding well-meaning
Westerners to communism’s monstrosity. When pundits alarmed by
Rand-style individualism scoff at the “myth” of individual
autonomy, we should remember that this “myth” gave us freedom and
human rights, and unleashed creative energies that raised
humanity’s welfare to once-unthinkable levels. Rand’s work offers a
powerful defense of freedom’s moral foundation—and a perceptive
analysis of the kinship between “progressive” and “traditionalist”
anti-freedom ideologies.

Rand’s ideas apply to the personal as well as the political. One
needn’t go to Randian extremes to agree that the valorization of
“sacrifice” and the accusation of “selfishness” can be potent
weapons for users, manipulators, and family despots—or that
dependency is not the path to healthy relationships. (In Rand’s
words, “To say ‘I love you,’ one must first know how to say the
‘I.’ ”) A common critique is that Rand appeals to adolescents who
think they’re self-sufficient, special, and destined for great
achievement. Yet surely the world would be poorer—materially and
spiritually—without people who carry some of that “spirit of
youth,” as Rand called it, into adulthood.

Attacks on Rand have also focused on her person, from her
disastrous extramarital affair with a much younger protégé to her
brief infatuation, at 23, with a notorious killer she described as
an “exceptional boy” warped by conformist society. Ugly stuff, to
be sure; but plenty of other intellectuals had a sordid personal
lives and romanticized murderers as rebels.

Rand is best viewed as a brilliant maverick. But there are
reasons this woman attracted hordes of followers, influenced many
others, and impressed smart people from journalist Mike Wallace to
philosopher John Hospers. Those who treat Rand as a liberal
bogeyman will forever be blindsided by her appeal.

This article
originally appeared at the Boston Globe.

2012-08-23 15:17:00

Source: http://reason.com/archives/2012/08/23/what-liberals-dont-understand-about-ayn