Ayn Rand is the Che Guevara of the individualist crowd, the stoic and angry Goddess of self-empowerment. As this piece in The New York Times discusses, the Obama era is rekindling Rand's message born 52 years ago in "Atlas Shrugged".
“Atlas Shrugged” was published 52 years ago, but in the Obama era, Rand’s angry message is more resonant than ever before. Sales of the book have reportedly spiked. At “tea parties” and other conservative protests, alongside the Obama-as-Joker signs, you will find placards reading “Atlas Shrugs” and “Ayn Rand Was Right.” Not long after the inauguration, as right-wing pundits like Glenn Beck were invoking Rand and issuing warnings of incipient socialism, Representative John Campbell, Republican of California, told a reporter that the prospect of rising taxes and government regulation meant “people are starting to feel like we’re living through the scenario that happened in ‘Atlas Shrugged.’ ”
Rand’s style of vehement individualism has never been universally popular among conservatives — back in 1957, Whittaker Chambers denounced the “wickedness” of “Atlas Shrugged” in National Review — and Rand still has her critics on the right today. But it can often seem, as Jonathan Chait, a senior editor at The New Republic recently observed, that “Rand is everywhere in this right-wing mood.” And while it’s not hard to understand Rand’s revenge-fantasy appeal to those on the right, would-be Galts ought to hear the story Anne C. Heller has to tell in her dramatic and very timely biography, “Ayn Rand and the World She Made.”
1 comment:
Ayn Rand is somewhat under-appreciated, particularly in the academy. That said, I wonder how many people who claim to "like" this article on Facebook, have actually read any of Rand's works in their entirety.
How easy it is to click "Like"; how difficult it is to "like" an idea enough to actually pursue it all the way through to the end of a complicated book. And, of course, it's easier still to, once one has actually read the book, claim to like it without ever having to substantiate that feeling with an interesting or insightful comment.
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