The Ayn Rand Bandwagon

In the habits of fragmentary treatment and erratic frequency characteristic of this blog – especially when I find myself here on Saturdays – we continue the analysis of whatever vaguely market-related subject happens to capture my attention within an indeterminate period previous to writing. This time, it’s Ayn Rand.

I alluded to Ein some weeks back as the posthumous perpetrator of a petty mindcrime against a former acquaintance of mine. Still an acolyte, Rand simply convinced him to light candles in front of his own mirror rather than the Pieta.

Those memories were evoked by a randomized turn-of-the-dial listen to conservative talk radio host Glenn Beck during the morning commute: what I heard was veneration of Rand, Atlas Shrugged and WSJ Op-Ed writer Steve Moore for his 01/09/2009 piece “‘Atlas Shrugged’: From Fact to Fiction in 52 Years”.    That column’s abject paucity of trenchant analysis, highly selective treatment of AS and Randian heroine worship were simply terrible.  Beck’s total lack of cognizance that the object of his adulation uniformly averred ethical premises – as sine qua non for the success of capitalism - I’m certain he’d find repugnant was embarrassing; but brought to my attention a fomenting undercurrent I’ve noticed among pundits on the Right and marginalized self-styled philosophers and…traders: that Ayn Rand was magnificently prescient, a grand prophetess and first-rate philosopher who had all the answers half a century ago. 

Goddess Ayn, Progenitress of the Objectivist Faith

I am not an irrational Rand-hater; I know better: nothing would be easier for an Objectivist interlocutor to belittle and neutralize in their customarily supercilious manner.  And yes: Rand’s critique of statism carries important observations.  She was intellectually formidable and a talented writer (though agonizingly loquacious and not gifted) and a fair philosopher in some regards.  

But in other areas (for her, those areas that mattered most), I think she fared quite poorly: epistemologically (UGH!), ethically (GASP!), logically (BLEH!), even (a)theologically (SHRIEK!).  I’ll not go into it, unless someone prefers that I did; but I hesitate to here, because I don’t invite nor do I accept invitations to engage in what amounts to the interminable pissing contests so typical of philosophical pedants on the Internet. 

Perhaps traders don’t care about all of that: they’re simply content to appropriate from and make lists of Rand’s pithy little truisms a la Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil in support of their chosen profession.  As a recent, high-profile example, take Santelli’s “At the end of the day, I’m an Ayn Rand-er” comment during his one of his recent rants.  Really, Rick?  Just what are you actually talking about?  

Maybe intellectually irresponsible, but good because while I’m not out to alienate or anger anyone reading (mostly traders), I’m also going a bit out of my way to convey that as a formerly intensive student of the above philosophical sub-disciplines, I find most of the content of Rand’s oeuvre to be atrocious, and the quasi-apotheosis to which she has been subjected by her superficial admirers and obsessive Objectivist lackeys to be loathsome.  If you’re a big fan of Rand’s “novels” and non-fiction works, think of yourself as adherent of Objectivism, think Leonard Peikoff (or David Kelley, for that matter) are nigh-unto-infallible, believe implicit subscription to Rand’s ideas would revivify our politico-economic system, or are any other variant on the hopeless-sophist-Rand-devotee archetype, “obsessive Objectivist lackey” probably means you.

This all means that as of this moment I’m inaugurating a 30 minute cessation of the Eulogy to lament the decline of the market, which has brought about government intervention (about which I’m ambivalent) and the secondary effect of a resurgence in the popularity of Rand’s work.  Foreclosures, layoffs, and now, perhaps worst of all: increased sales of The Fountainhead by those who will never read it, or who will read it cover-to-cover and then cradle it in their arms as they sleep at night.  I guess we can blame all this on Obama, too.  

Now that I’ve gotten that off my chest, I’ll go back to enjoying a beautiful afternoon.

Lament over.