WATCH: Jon Stewart And Author Jennifer Burns On Ayn Rand Resurgence

Jennifer Burns, author of the forthcoming book Ayn Rand: Goddess of the Market, talked to Jon Stewart last night about the resurgence of Ayn Rand in popular culture recently. Though she admitted that, having started the book eight years ago, she couldn't have predicted the renewed interest, she did explain that interest in Ayn Rand is cyclical, usually corresponding with political cycles -- when there's a liberal administration, the conservatives once again turn to Ayn Rand.

Recent evidence of a resurgence includes this summer's negotiations between Lionsgate and Charlize Theron about a possible movie adaptation of Atlas Shrugged, though Charlize was apparently concerned that a regular film would "lose many of the nuances" of the book, and has proposed a mini-series instead, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Reason Magazine declares that 2009 is "the year of Ayn Rand," and a Wall Street Journal article in January declared that the bailout plans were straight out of Atlas Shrugged. Ayn Rand has been used as a figurehead of the tea party protests this year, and she's also found an academic revival in universities all over the country.

Lucky for Jennifer Burns, at least, who gets to ride the wave of revival. And let us know of any Ayn Rand reading groups you hear about.

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Comments

[Tony581]

Alisa Zinov'yevna Rosenbaum (Ayn Rand) was an interesting person, and some of her ideas were not conservative. For example, her fondness for intellectual achievement and her strong dislike of organized religion. However, her love of laissez faire capitalism was highly simplistic and misguided. I still don't understand how she could ignore the brutality of unfettered capitalism: child labor, work-related illness and death, the creation of oligopolies and monopolies, the globalization of unfair labor practices, etc.

[skantea]

I read Shrugged and Fountainhead in my twenties and without looking at them from a political angle.
For some reason, in neither book did I find the poor to be the enemy. I remember the enemy being talentless hacks that did not move the world forward, but instead tried to hold it back by jealously destroying people of vision.
That's how I interpreted it.
Now that I know more about the authors background, that interpretation feels ruined.
*sigh*

[Eoin45]

Back in the day when I was a professsional musician every Ayn Rand devotee I met thought of themselves as misunderstood musical geniuses. In reality they were was no-talents.

[Eoin45]

Oops, take out that "was" before no-talents.

[naschkatze]

You probably could expand that beyond music. Everyone I have ever known who idolized Ayn Rand was no big shakes in himself or herself.

[FunPie]

In the 1920's, Victorian-era Puritains were upset that young women were 1.voting, 2.dancing, 3. exploring newfound sexual freedom. They turned to a trilogy of books about the Ku Klux Klan for solace and inspiration. The books were wildly popular and inspired not only inspired the film "Birth of a Nation" but also caused an enormous resurgence of the Klan itself. Just because a book is popular, doesn't make the ideas within it right.

http://thefunpie.wordpress.com/2009/09/30/the-freedom-market/

[jhNY]

If there were ever a comic book version of any Rand novel, it would feature poorly drawn stick figures dwarfed by huge conversation balloons of cant.

[hollace]

Rand was a Writer. Not an Economist. Her books were fiction, but I'm guessing that is not important to the people who find her writing ...come to think of it they probably haven't read her, but like the idea of her they have from Coles Notes TV Pundits.

Ayn Rand can't come back and Pay their health care and ironically she probably would of used them to make a profit ,if she could.

[zannamar]

She also wrote non fiction essays and books. Her fictional books were based on her philosophy.

[DiogenesOfAlaska]

in a sense, already that fact by itself devalues her novels.

But it's even worse when you consider the fact that her ideal was basically romantic Prometheanism - which is even more incompatible with the idea that art could be the result of the application of a theory.

bottom line: it all just doesn't make any sense.

[Jim Marusak]

can't you say the same thing about L Ron Hubbard, scientology, and religion? after all he was a science fiction writer, not looking to be a messiah as some believe...

[SensibleJoe]

Ayn Rand was a selfish, amoral, egotistical charlatan. No society, culture or civilization could survive, much less thrive, on her philosophy of über-individualism.

[generationyes]

Well said.

[BlackJAC]

More like she was a spoiled rich kid throwing an extended temper tantrum over being unceremoniously dumped from her life of wealth and privilege. Had the Commies not come to power, we'd only know her as the mother or even grandmother of some Paris Hilton-class celebutante.

[DiogenesOfAlaska]

Yeah, that's pretty much it.

[ProfessorDuh]

Rand's work impressed me, although I have grown beyond it. But she was a genius, and something she said has ominous overtones today — that the rich are only a nation's past, and the middle class must be its future. What does that imply today, about the U.S.?

[Josephus]

Having taught H.S. and college for 34 years it has been my observation that Ayn Rand appeals particularly to the young who have an inclination to a B&W viewpoint. I noticed over decades that those students are drawn to Rand initially but as they age and learn that the world is nuanced with many shades of gray, they come to reject her particular brand of adolescent sensibility.

I see this fascination with Rand as being less cyclical but more a symptom of adolescent­/young-adu­lt development that, more often than not, is eventually rejected for a more realistic world view due to wisdom gained from experience.

Yes there are adults like Hannity who extole her view that altruism is a vice but more often than not such "adults" are in an arrested state of development. A truly civilized culture cannot sustain itself on such a philosophy as Rand's.

[Leebot]

I would be interested in your professional take on "Lord of the Flies." Have you taught that one? It seems to be required reading in many classrooms, at least it was back in the 70s. I had to read that book twice (junior & senior high classesl) and hated it. I thought it was dreadful, a hyperbolic and pessimistic view of humanity. Now, many years later as I watch some grown ups who seem to epitomize "arrested development" act out their worst instincts, the themes of Golding's novel suddenly seem very apt and I can't believe I'm saying this -- I think I should re-read this book. It's all there -- the authoritarian types continuing to jockey for position and power (if they can't be in power they won't recognize or cooperate with those who are), the juvenile belly-bumping contests in the public square, the attempts to de-legitimize the duly elected president, the neo-cons continuing to trumpet their brand of American Exceptionalism, the exploitation of fears over an imaginary beast as a means of control. Now Golding's story seems the perfect metaphor. Funny how that happens.

[BlackJAC]

LORD OF THE FLIES was sticking it to the whole ROBINSON CRUSOE myth that the civilized would remain civilized even outside of Civilization.

[Leebot]

Anybody ever read her play "Night of January 16th" -- a rather gripping (for the time) courtroom drama, kind of removed from her usual fare. A lot of people don't know she wrote this one.

I read both "Atlas Shrugged" and "The Fountainhead" in my early 20s. I found them both to be interesting (although the verbal diarrhea of "Atlas" got my eyes rolling toward the end of the book, I felt she overstated her points) and of course I kind of admired the mouthy Dagny Taggart, a heroine who soundly rejected traditional role of wife, mom and Bauble. But I took from the books only that which inspired me -- the celebration of individual achievement and striving for excellence. An overall positive message. But I suppose at some level I either didn't truly "grok" the over-arching political philosophy which seems to be a kind of Social Darwinism? Perhaps that is what a couple others of you are saying as well. Maybe it was because of lessons of compassion and empathy from my parents and the Catholic nuns where I was educated, or maybe a host of other reading -- including Charles Dickens -- combined with real life experience as a single mom that says you know, a person can do their level best and strive for excellence and it's still be victimized by a culture of corporate greed that willingly creates casualties of everyday folks or even the environment in the name of the almighty dollar.

[aliceautumn]

That was one of her failed attempts to write movies. That was her first goal was to be a screenwriter.

[naschkatze]

My high school class freshman play was "The Night of January 16th", and I played the terpsichorean, a.k.a., nightclub dancer.

[everonward]

Objectivism offers a moral justification for greed and selfishness.

I wonder how many current right wing followers of Rand know that Anton LeVey, the founder of "The Church of Satan" and writer of the satanic bible; said that Satanism was mostly the philosophy of Ayn Rand with ceremony and ritual added. (paraphrased)

[w0rld0fw0rcraft]

ayn rand is embarrassing childishness.

[Saddler1]

She hasn't seriously influenced anyone over the age of 20. What she has done has given some already predatory people reasons to stare at themselves in the mirror and smile.

[MissKaren]

I agree. If you're over 20 when you read "Atlas Shrugged" (Fountainhead has more "story" in it), you lose something. I read "Atlas Shrugged" when I was eighteen -- in one night -- and never needed to open it again.

[jesselee26]

interesting. just the other day somebody was trying to convince me to put rand on a very extensive: to-read list. i'm sure one day i'll get around to it. but now i'm feeling less guilty about the fact that i just started another hardy last night.

[miguelobrien]

How fun to learn that Hannity thinks she's great. Stoopid and stoopider.

You are very perspicacious. She wrote with movies in mind: melodramers.