Topic: Americana
Dear Miss Walters: Are you another Ayn Rand pretend-admirer? Barbara Walters, it appears, has never read Ayn Rand, or if she did, it was long ago and she totally mis-represents both Ayn Rand and the great themes in her novels. Consider Miss Walters views vs. mine.by Emma Goldman
(libertarian)
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Following are extracted quotes from Miss Barbara Walters biographical book. With these, I take a serious look at her assertions and evaluations regarding Ayn Rand, to see if Miss Walters truly understands and admires Miss Rand, or is just performing a pretend-sychophantic-smear-campaign (PSSC) against the greatest individualist / feminist female author / philosopher of the last 2000 years.
1) "The message of The Fountainhead was that laissez-faire capitalism was everything, that government should stay out of all things, and that charity was poison."
WRONG Neither the Foutainhead nor Ayn Rand had ever said charity is poison'. Ayn Rand always said that charity is a private matter, and government has no right to force you to give to others (and skim off the top). The Fountainhead theme is individualism versus collectivism in man's soul. This means Rand depicted her hero to be a man who thinks independently, and her anti-hero to be a man who always follows the opinions of others. This novel proves that there is no conflict between idealism and practicality.
2) "She had a small but devoted and influential following"
WRONG Ayn Rand earned admiration, respect and finally -- after a hard fought battle against those engaged in a vitriolic publicity campaign against her last and greatest novel, Atlas Shrugged -- world fame. Atlas Shrugged sells more copies today than its most popular point decades ago. Miss Rand's most recent annual book sales total more than 100,000 copies each year between Atlas Shrugged and the Fountainhead (amazing, considering its been 50 to 60 years after they were first published).
3) "They called themselves Objectivists"
WRONG This statement makes it sounds like Rand and her 'small following' (i.e. an imagined cult) created an ad hoc group to follow 'the gospel' of Atlas Shrugged, as their bible. In fact, Miss Rand heroically decided to go out into the public and answer questions by people that had read her novels and fervently agreed with her view, in order to try and generate favorable publicity to thwart the public attacks against her. Eventually, so many brilliant intellectuals, engineers, scientists, businessmen, had asked her so many questions to gain elucidation on their own thinking, Rand was able to tackle a 2400 year old philosophy problem head-on, and end the definitive battle between Aristotle, and his teacher, Plato (an objective theory of Concept formation). Rand formed her life view into 'a complete philosophy for living on earth', and coined herself an 'objectivist'. It was her admirers and 'followers' that consider themselves Objectivists, but Objectivism has never been a cult with Rand as a leader who demanded blind 'follower' members.
That 2400 year old philosophical battle Miss Rand solved consisted of two fundamental life questions, the first of which is: how does man gain knowledge'? Only those aforementioned ancient philosophers had ever proposed solutions to the fundamental question of how man develops his conceptual faculty (his ideas). Ayn Rand solved the theory of concepts (which answers the question: "How does man's mind apprehend ideas (concepts)?". And it took her about 30 minutes one morning, after spending so many years of critical thinking and writing about her personal views of life, and embodying them into her heroes in fiction -- fictional heroes to whom Miss Rand gave the 'job' of defending her views on life to those who read her books.
4) "Alan Greenspan, a man who believed in the philosophy of little government interference and few rules or regulations"
WRONG Miss Walters is attempting to ascribe her views of Rand onto Greenspan as his own. Capitalism isn't about 'little government interference' into the free market. It's about zero government interference. Ayn Rand was the first thinker, since the Industrial Revolution was invented in America, to recognize that America has never been a fully Capitalist society. It was close to pure capitalism, until Federalism institutions began in 1789. But free markets slowly eroded over time and today, we only have about 50-55% Capitalism remaining in this country.
5) "He encouraged me to read her other most famous book Atlas Shrugged, which I did"
INTERESTING How Miss Walters doesn't reveal the theme of this book. Last night I impressed my 60+ year old mother, and kept her in rapt attention, as I gave her 'the first oral history of Atlas Shrugged I have ever offered anyone'. Since I won't ramble on for 5000 words here, I'll simply mention that the book's theme is "the role of man's mind, not individually, but within society."
So you can see that the Atlas theme is similar to the Fountainhead, but wider, moving from the field of ethics (morality) into politics (and by extension, political economic theory).
The most fascinating (and somewhat spooky for some people today) is the prescient vision Ayn Rand presented in Atlas Shrugged. It painted a picture of a future America, which was succumbing to the ideas of political collectivism (i.e. statism, such as communism). The hero rejects that code of ethics on which America rests (sacrifice), and vows to remove all the men of the mind from society, by convincing them to go on strike with him. So the novel depicts the calamities that naturally start to mount when the geniuses start leaving 'the rest of us'. Industry giants disappear, bridges collapse, train wrecks occur, regional blackouts on the east coast happen, and piracy on the high seas is occurring, without any forthcoming solutions to the mounting disaster and downturn of the economic engine of America.
Unfortunately, Miss Walters seems to be like all those others that completely missed the point of Ayn Rand's novels, or took others' opinions for their own about her novels even though they had never completely read them first hand, then proudly profess to others that they had, in order to appear intellectually curious and 'open' to Miss Rand's ideas.
Mr. Whittaker Chambers, however, is still the champion pipsqueak at the top of the Ayn Rand run-by smear campaign list. At least Miss Walters didn't dethrone him.
I hope I have encouraged you, over Barbara Walters polite but implicit smears, to begin on Ayn Rand's novel Anthem, which is a small 100 page novelette. If you like the idea behind that tiny fictional book, I think you'll continue reading her novels... because it means you still have a sense of pride and of ego and the world hasn't crushed your spirit yet.
But don't take Miss Walter's view of Rand or mine as the definitive one... simply read her works, and make the decision for yourself.
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The views expressed in this
article are those of Emma Goldman only and do not represent
the views of Nolan Chart, LLC or its affiliates. Emma Goldman is
solely responsible for the contents of this article and is not an
employee or otherwise affiliated with Nolan Chart, LLC in his/her role as a columnist.
Posted By: Louie Charles
Date: 2008-06-25 21:59:03
Excellent editorial/essay. You captured the spirit which engulfed Rand in the '70's like nothing I have read... and I read right through all her stuff from '74-'77 and met some of the "players" first hand right afterward; including her. If your mom is 60 you were probably a bit too young to have seen all this evolve, but you were obviously there in spirit as a kid.
You may contact me at LCharles14@yahoo.com if you would like to pick my brain some more.
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