The Real Rogue Warrior: Ayn Rand, Not Sarah Palin

Despite the media frenzy surrounding Sarah Palin's autobiographical Going Rogue, the real rogue warrior making a political conservative comeback today is not Palin, but the Russian immigrant turned champion of American conservative principles, Ayn Rand. If you really want to understand the conservative right read Ayn Rand, not Sarah Palin. If there is anyone who legitimately deserves to wear the adjectival crown of "mavericky" it is Rand. More than a quarter century after her 1982 death, she is enjoying a level of fame and influence (and book sales) that she arguably never received in her lifetime.

Although Palin's book is #1 on the bestseller list, how many copies do you suppose it will be selling 50 years from now? According to the nonpartisan marketing service Bookscan, which measures actual cash register sales of books, Rand's novels are flying off the shelves as never before. During one week in late August of 2009, Atlas Shrugged saw a 67% bump in sales over the same week in 2008, and a 114% increase over the same week in 2007. According to her publisher New American Library, Atlas sold 25% more in the first half of 2009 than it did for the entire year of 2008. Through the end of September, 2009, in fact, sales of Atlas had already exceeded 300,000 copies, putting it on par with the top 20 new novels of the year. This isn't bad for a 52-year old, 1,168-page novel full of lengthy speeches about philosophy, metaphysics, economics, politics, sex and money.

Rand has been posterized at Tea Party protests with placards proclaiming "Atlas is Shrugging", "Where is John Galt?", and the über-cool "The Name is Galt. John Galt." Talk of a feature film or television mini-series is back in serious consideration, with Randian Angelina Jolie interested in playing the Atlas heroine Dagny Taggert, and Charlize Theron with her sites on the same role for television. Two new biographies have just been issued: Anne Heller's Ayn Rand and the World She Made and Jennifer Burns' Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right. Both have received critical acclaim in numerous reviews in major publications as balanced accounts of Rand's life and influence. Heller's biography traces Rand's intellectual development to important influences in her Russian heritage, and Burns' book documents the unmistakable impact Rand has had on the development and current principles held by the conservative right.

You can no more understand the right without Rand than you can understand it without Buckley, Goldwater, and Reagan. The dismissal of Rand by both the left and the right as mind candy for college kids is fatuous. It may be true that many of us (myself included) were first introduced to Rand in college, but that's when most of us are introduced to most of the philosophical and literary figures in history. So what?

And yes, of course, both biographies deal with--as they must--Rand's sordid and salacious personal life, which must also carry this disclaimer: Criticism of the founder of a theory does not, by itself, constitute a negation of any part of the theory. By most accounts, Sir Isaac Newton was a narcissistic, misogynistic, egocentric, curmudgeon, and yet his theories about light, gravity, and the structure of the cosmos stand on their own and would be no more or less true had he been a saintly gentleman. Rand's critique of Communism may have been energized and animated by the horrific experiences she and her family endured under the brutal Communist regime in Russia (including the confiscation of her father's business), but those criticisms of Communism would be just as true or false had she been raised a farm girl in Iowa.

What are Rand's principles and which of her books should you read to understand the modern conservative movement? Start with Atlas Shrugged. According to a survey conducted by the Library of Congress and the Book-of-the-Month club, readers ranked it #2 behind the Bible as the most influential book they had ever read. It is a murder mystery, not about the murder of a human body, but of the murder of the human spirit. It is a story about a man who said he would stop the ideological motor of the world by removing the most productive people from society. When he did, there was a panoramic collapse of civilization. Atlas is an apocalyptic story of destruction and redemption.

What Rand stands for that conservatives like is her philosophy of rugged individualism, personal responsibility, and the importance of having morals and values, well captured in a speech by the hero of Atlas Shrugged, John Galt: "In the name of the best within you, do not sacrifice this world to those who are its worst. In the name of the values that keep you alive, do not let your vision of man be distorted by the ugly, the cowardly, the mindless in those who have never achieved his title. Do not lose your knowledge that man's proper estate is an upright posture, an intransigent mind and a step that travels unlimited roads. Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark, in the hopeless swamps of the approximate, the not-quite, the not-yet, the not-at-all. Do not let the hero in your soul perish, in lonely frustration for the life you deserved, but have never been able to reach. Check your road and the nature of your battle. The world you desired can be won, it exists, it is real, it is possible, it's yours."

Read that again, out loud and with passion, and you will understand the appeal of Ayn Rand. In a postmodern age of moral relativism and anti-heroes, Rand gives us heroes who stand for principles unequivocally, unreservedly, and with passion. As her biographer Jennifer Burns observes: "Rand intended her books to be a sort of scripture, and for all her emphasis on reason it is the emotional and psychological sides of her novels that make them timeless. Reports of Ayn Rand's death are greatly exaggerated. For many years to come she is likely to remain what she has always been, a fertile touchstone of the American imagination."

Even though Palin is no intellectual match for Rand, it may be that the simplicity of her black-and-white worldview and the fervor of her moral convictions appeal in the same way to the same people as Rand's passions.

 

Follow Michael Shermer on Twitter: www.twitter.com/michaelshermer

Comments

[marxug]

Thank you for your fine article, Mr. Shermer. I only bemoan the use of Rand's and Palin's names in nails-on-chalkboard juxtaposition.

I want to cite the elephant in the Elephant room: Atheism. When you consider that the abortion issue is still a litmus test for true conservatives, we have to conclude that Palin, Beck, Limbaugh and other putative New American Revolutionaries are throwing into the breach anything they can get their hands on if it only smells like ideological ammunition for the nanosecond. I doubt most Tea Partiers have confronted that in an Objectivist world, a church could with wide approval be torn down to build an abortion clinic.

Presently Fox News is festooned by appearances by Objectivists. But this alliance is purely ad-hoc, based on a diffuse hatred of anything lefty, and focused by loathing of President Obama. Absent the high-profile whipping boy, these worldviews would schism with little delay.

Objectivists should take nausea, not solace from the flash of ardency shown them by desperate modern conservatives. And liberals, which I consider myself, should not tar Rand's writings by association with the mass-media trolls temporarily enchanted by them. I've long thought that Ayn Rand's scorn of the left was an act of emotional prejudice and not intellectual rigor, which was reciprocated in kind. Modern secular-valuers and skeptical thinkers should take a lesson and endeavor to see past the Tea-Baggers. I think Objectivism's place will ultimately be on the liberal tree.

[AnaMarie]

Actually, the modern conservative movement has very little in common with Rand's works. Superficially, for those who believe that the message was make money and don't give it away for free, yes, the conservatives seem to be Randian. However, the actual message is that no one should force anything on anyone else through laws, religion, physical force, or any other method, and one should earn everything one has. Money is the symbol of what is good (production and earning), but it is not money itself that is the God of the Randian universe.

An Objectivist would be against the war in Iraq and no-bid defense contracts, pro-abortion, pro-same sex unions, anti-creationism/intelligent design in science classes, anti-bailout, and anti-government and business connections, typically the opposite of republican politicians. Yes, Objectivists are also against the health care bill and other social programs, for lower taxes, anti-regulations in business (and everywhere, really), and anti-gun control, but they are certainly not in line with the majority of modern conservatives.

Rand's writing has certainly had an impact on modern conservatives, but reading her writings will not offer an understanding of the modern conservative movement. They should be read, and hopefully, they will in fact cause the reader to think and consider the importance of education, hard work, and personal responsibility, but join the conservative party? Not likely. Consider a political candidate based on their platform instead of their party? Hopefully.

[bnpixie1990]

I appreciated the quote addressing the fact that most people who first hear of Rand do so in the first few years of college. I had read another article earlier today that used this fact as criticism against her work. Apparently, all college aged people, like myself, are to young and malleable to have valuable opinions.

This sounds a lot like people who'd like to blame video games or Marilyn Manson for violence among today's youth. Apparently, young people are incapable of thought only of mimicry. Well, if that's true than I think two facts need to be taken into consideration.

1.) Most young people are liberals. (Not Objectivists)
2.) 18 or older and male. You can be signed into the army. Oh and if your 18 or older and you commit the a crime you get punished as an adult.

We're malleable? Well, then so are a lot of liberals. Can't think for ourselves? then don't try us as adults or put guns in our hands to go and fight wars. That is 'too much' for our young minds.

Also, agreeing with Rand doesn't mean you want to screw over the lower class. It means you don't want any majority dictating the lives of the minority. Be that minority black, hispanic, homosexual, religious or atheist.

[Paul Stephens]

What better place to find a defense of Ayn Rand? She was an Aristotelian - he was Greek, wasn't he?
I've always thought Rand (her real name was Rosenbaum - I prefer to use that!) was a Leftist. A Nietzschean Anarchist, more specifically.
Most of her later politics was a cover during the Red Scare. Religious conservatives like Palin were among her least welcome admirers. Of course, Palin probably read Rand, too. She would have been the type to identify with Gail Wynand (the WR Hearst lookalike). And she shot wolves from airplanes, and wants to "drill, baby drill." Definitely "objectivist" positions.

[Ayn-Rand-Fan]

"the Russian immigrant turned champion of American conservative principles, Ayn Rand."

Ayn Rand wasn't a conservative. Here is what she had to say about conservatism:

Objectivists are not “conservatives.” We are radicals for capitalism; we are fighting for that philosophical base which capitalism did not have and without which it was doomed to perish . . .

Politics is based on three other philosophical disciplines: metaphysics, epistemology and ethics—on a theory of man’s nature and of man’s relationship to existence. It is only on such a base that one can formulate a consistent political theory and achieve it in practice. When, however, men attempt to rush into politics without such a base, the result is that embarrassing conglomeration of impotence, futility, inconsistency and superficiality which is loosely designated today as “conservatism.” . . .

Today’s culture is dominated by the philosophy of mysticism (irrationalism)—altruism—collectivism, the base from which only statism can be derived; the statists (of any brand: communist, fascist or welfare) are merely cashing in on it—while the “conservatives” are scurrying to ride on the enemy’s premises and, somehow, to achieve political freedom by stealth. It can’t be done.

[rtaylortitle]

Agreed. As an ex "conservative" and ex "Christian fundamentalist" who finally grew up in his 30's, it becomes more and more transparent to me that conservatism today has been reduced to sloganeering and symbolism. There is a crack showing from time to time with Beck and Limbaugh as they make their brief references to Rand. The most consistent libertarian on the scene now, IMO, is Judge Andrew Napolitano. His unabashed reference to man's "natural rights" is inspiring, to say the least.

[mtnrunner2]

Mr. Shermer,

I can't believe I'm reading this at Huff Post. Well said.

To the Ayn Rand critics among the commenters: why repeat the same liberal-echo-chamber nonsense about Greenspan, markets failing and so on? Take a hint from Mr. Shermer and learn what Rand actually advocated, instead of repeating a bunch of falsehoods. Good grief!

Jeff Montgomery
http://funwithgravity.blogspot.com

[hemara]

"I can't believe I'm reading this at Huff Post."

Check your premise.

Perhaps libs aren't as crazy or uninformed as you might have been led to believe.

[Henry Solomon]

Mr. Schermer, I thank you for your impassioned defense of Ayn Rand's philosophy and Atlas Shrugged. She certainly deserves it, and only very rarely gets it. As far as her personal life is concerned, I disagree with your asssesment, but, as you say, it's the ideas that matter.

[Mike Zemack]

Thank you, Mr. Shermer, for a pretty good article, although the appropriate term to describe Ayn Rand is not rogue, but radical. You make a crucial point all too often forgotten: “Criticism of the founder of a theory does not, by itself, constitute a negation of any part of the theory.” I agree that Sarah Palin (who I am not a fan of) cannot hold a candle to Ayn Rand.

It should be pointed out that many people of various political persuasions in what today passes for the American "Right" - from conservative to libertarian to Republican to "Tea Partyers" - cherry-pick aspects of Rand’s ideas for their own purposes, while ignoring the rich depth of her comprehensive philosophy. Also, a large swath of American Conservatism abhors Ayn Rand for her secularism, social “liberalism”, and the challenge she hurls at Judeo-Christian morality through her ethics of rational self-interest.

You’ll learn little about Objectivism (Rand’s philosophy) by listening to conservatives. So, take some advice from an Objectivist husband, father, and grandfather who never “outgrew” Ayn Rand. If you’re seriously interested in understanding Rand’s enduring appeal, you’ll just have to study her works yourself, and exercise a cardinal virtue of the Objectivist ethics – your own independent judgement.

http://www.principledperspectives.blogspot.com/

[Fred Weiss]

Thank you Mr. Shermer for an overall fair minded and interesting review.

Apparently many of the commentators here not only haven't read Ayn Rand - or not understood a word she said - but they also ignored your admonishment against ad hominem.

Fred Weiss

[Jack Crawford]

Thanks for the intelligent article about Ayn Rand. I think her ideas are what the right (and the left) should adopt instead of what they already have adopted. Many on the right just see the superficiality of "Making money is good." and leave it at that. Epistemology? Metaphysics? That's for people with minds, who care for ideas. I am glad that you do care, Mr. Shermer

[fmarquez]

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.

[bobtalk99]

Too bad about the thousands of professors, engineers, scientists, businessmen, teachers, and others who read Ayn Rand years ago and continue to regard themselves as followers. Regarding her work as childish is merely a poor attempt to avoid dealing with the issues she rasies and the ongoing influence of her ideas. It is adult to learn how to argue and regard sneering as childish.

[HeevenSteven]

"...personal responsibility, and the importance of having morals and values"

Sounds just like a good progressive; only we also emphasize responsibility to our communities, future generations and the less fortunate..

[fmarquez]

touche!

why was there a need to claim or label altruistic traits as the libertarians have in creating the Atlas society anyway? what was the intention in claiming the intellectual property of being a responsible person to yourself and your community?

[LateDave]

If you want to get snarled at, pronounce her name "Ann Rand." Her "objectivist" followers are quite emotional about such little things.

Randism--excuse me, "objectivism"--is good, solid teenage-snob wishful thinking. The problem with it is that half of the people have a two-digit IQ (by definition), and, frankly, can't figure out how to live like survivalists, which is the ultimate test of the "new intellectual."

A *real* philosophy starts with the world as it is. Rand wanted to kill off almost everybody and create a narrow society of virtual angels to esteem each other and be producers without conflict.

"If a contradiction appears to exist, check your premises." First premise: most people don't deserve to live. Destroying the means by which they now live (or slowly starve, as so many do) is therefore a moral act. Notice that the insane overpopulation of the planet is tamped down by *educating girls and women* which is opposed by clerics of all stripes (Rand was devoutly atheistic). But Randists don't want public education either, even though it is the only real chance for survival of our species.

[f252863]

Clearly you haven't read her works or understand how not observing her policies leads to the destruction of empires and collapse of societies.

Do you really think the USA is on a sustainable path? Any form of government that derives its power through relentless expansion is doomed. Redistribution of wealth only diminishes wealth, and eventually you run out of funds so the promises of milk and honey are nothing more than lies. Medicare, Social Security and all these other programs have done nothing but raise the cost of health insurance, bankrupt our country and yet the delusional still cling to it despite the obvious crash that is ahead of us. The Roman Empire went through the same experiences as the statists grew ever more powerful, soon they had nothing left to suck dry and the empire collapsed.

[jhNY]

As I said on this subject October 20, "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."

[fmarquez]

....as long as it stays in the fiction section.