Progressive Tactic of the Week: Link the GOP to Ayn Rand
The progressives over at the Center for American Progress's "Think Progress" this week launched an ad that attempts to link the GOP to some of the less savory aspects of Ayn Rand's objectivism. Here's the video:
A few initial reactions:
First, with all due respect to the many Ricochet members who have expressed their admiration of Ms. Rand, I've never quite understood why she should be heralded as the patron saint of the modern conservative movement. She herself was no conservative, as Donald Luskin reminded us in the pages of the Wall Street Journal last week.
Rand was a devout atheist, which set her against the movement's Christian bent. She got off on the wrong foot with the movement's founder, William F. Buckley Jr., when she introduced herself to him in her thick Russian accent, saying "You are too intelligent to believe in God!"...
Rand was strongly pro-choice, speaking out for abortion rights even before Roe v. Wade. In late middle age, she became enamored of a much younger man and made up her mind to have an affair with him, having duly informed her husband and the younger man's wife in advance. Conservatives don't do things like that—or at least they say they don't...
If anything, Rand's life ought to ingratiate her to the left....
But Rand was always impossible to pin down politically. She loathed Dwight Eisenhower, whom she believed lacked conviction. And in 1975 she wrote, "I urge you, as emphatically as I can, not to support the candidacy of Ronald Reagan,"...
It's her advocacy of the free market that conservatives admire so much, and rightly so. But why not instead point to Friedrich von Hayek or Ludwig von Mises, neither of which held such belligerent attitudes toward religious institutions, and each of which made reasonable exceptions in their strict free market stances to allow for some sort of social safety net for the hungry and indigent?
Second, it is clear that Think Progress's goal with this video was to link conservatives with a historical figure that mainstream Americans might come to view as a kook, if only they got to know her a little better. But in this pursuit, I'm not convinced that Think Progress has succeeded. As member Jimmie Bise, Jr. so succinctly put it on Twitter:
Oh is that the progressive play now? Time to break out the Margaret Sanger quotes, I say.
I expect the public will react to Think Progress's attempt to associate prominent conservatives with Rand in much the same way it responded upon learning of Obama's ties to Louis Farrakhan.
Louis, who?
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Comments :
Dec '10
Re: Progressive Tactic of the Week: Link the GOP to Ayn Rand
Nice clip and good article Diane --
Did Ms. Rand ever specify why she was against Reagan ? She's provided some excellent work, but I see her at the far end of the libertarian spectrum in certain instances as you cited above.
Jun '10
Re: Progressive Tactic of the Week: Link the GOP to Ayn Rand
Diane Ellis, Ed.:
I am Right and you are wrong (left, Democrat, Liberal, or just anyone I don't happen to like) is a/one reason politics gets a bad name. It seems the louder one screams the less capacity for thought one retains. It's nice to see someone who refused to be shoved into a pigeonhole getting some serious attention.
Jul '10
Re: Progressive Tactic of the Week: Link the GOP to Ayn Rand
Rand is far more closely aligned with the hard core libertarian philosophers than with social conservatives. Her Objectivism is its own rule set, which tosses the common law and Burkean sensibilities that undergird what I see as the best of conservative and libertarian thought and replaces it with a whole cloth construct that makes harsh sometimes tyrannical demands.
At the same time, she made a consistent and intrepid career of challenging the underpinnings of the Left, and there are principles and arguments found in Objectivism that are illuminating even if the framework as a whole does not receive my support.
Re: Progressive Tactic of the Week: Link the GOP to Ayn Rand
Johannes Allert:
Did Ms. Rand ever specify why she was against Reagan ? She's provided some excellent work, but I see her at the far end of the libertarian spectrum in certain instances as you cited above. · Apr 19 at 3:02pm
Yes, she continues:
Re: Progressive Tactic of the Week: Link the GOP to Ayn Rand
And in 1981, she wrote of Reagan again:
Jan '11
Re: Progressive Tactic of the Week: Link the GOP to Ayn Rand
Ayn Rand shows that the enemy of your enemy isn't always a tenable friend. She is a great example of Aristotle's "bending back the stick" principle- sometimes only an extreme can straighten out what's bent out of shape. However, where her 'philosophy' is wrong is in her misunderstanding of 'self-interest' as selfishness. This comes from a slavish insistence that economics can explain society or politics. The founders understood human nature first, as that which is ordered to a higher good. For Rand, the self is the highest good, for her Leftist opponents, the collective represents the highest good, but for classical liberals, the self is a good that finds it's greatest expression in devotion to something greater than itself. By which, I mean, of course, Barack Obama....
May '10
Re: Progressive Tactic of the Week: Link the GOP to Ayn Rand
On an interesting aside, in the latest episode of "The Killing" on AMC (a pretty good show), one of main characters stated:
“I'm not making a deal with a man whose patron saint is Ayn Rand.”
The character is of course an idealistic (and assumably liberal) city councilman running for Mayor in Seattle, and "The Man" is a young billionaire type (think Paul Allen) who wants to build a sports stadium. I am sure that the writers could not conceive of anyone who might find Rand and her libertarian bent acceptable.
It is too bad that there are no writers in Hollywood who lean conservative....
Jun '10
Re: Progressive Tactic of the Week: Link the GOP to Ayn Rand
Diane Ellis, Ed.: And in 1981, she wrote of Reagan again:
Apr 19 at 3:14pm
Just when I thought I was seeing someone display good sense, someone with thoughtful convictions. *sigh*
Jul '10
Re: Progressive Tactic of the Week: Link the GOP to Ayn Rand
Don't beat up on Ayn Rand. Her books are probably responsible for the enlightenment of more people to conservative ideas than all her successors combined.
Oct '10
Re: Progressive Tactic of the Week: Link the GOP to Ayn Rand
Most people are kooks when described by their critics. Ayn Rand was perceptive in a way that resonates at this moment. She is not a person in whom we should invest more than respect for a specific insight.
That's why I believe philosophy is enduring even as philosophers are pompous. Every one is bound to disappoint if held to the highest of his standards. Likewise, there is no broadly satisfactory politician. Reagan was only "great" in retrospect. He had many shortcomings and was a success largely by comparison to his predecessor. Obama looks worst for being everything his worshipers said he wasn't. The best Republican nominee imaginable will be a demonic fool in Think Progress commentary.
in the spirit of not allowing the perfect to be the enemy of the good, let's enjoy Atlas Shrugged, stand up for our beliefs - no matter how crazy yours may be, and find a candidate able to collect one more electoral vote than President Obama.
Sep '10
Re: Progressive Tactic of the Week: Link the GOP to Ayn Rand
I'm not sure you should be so sanguine about this ad not taking hold, Diane. Any questioning of collectivism is viewed as utterly untoward by the mindset of most so-called progressives. Never mind that when a Paul Ryan speaks appreciatively of Rand's individualism he means her opposition to forced collectivism mandated by government and not voluntary love for the collective elicited by religious faith. The ad links budget cuts with being a selfish atheist: Can we all spell m-e-a-n? Or even e-v-i-l? The ad will likely increase the use of that sophomoric, unexamined mantra "Shame!"
Rand considered herself a radical for the individual. So do I, mostly because I've read all of her published letters (none of her books or plays) and think that she hit on a genuine truth about human nature (a truth that is hard to bear): all human action derives from the needs of the self, however altruistic such action may appear on the surface.
May '10
Re: Progressive Tactic of the Week: Link the GOP to Ayn Rand
People who equate Rand's Objectivism with conservatism do so because of a shallow similarity with regard to politics. Rand was an atheist, an egoist, and vocal in her desire for a pure capitalism. You can't be a conservative and be the above as well.
A head nod to the Mises link. I would like however to dehomogenize Hayek and Mises, as has been done before, with regard to their politics. Hayek desired some moderate forms of government intervention (and is sometimes taken to task by libertarians for doing so). By contrast, Mises' recalcitrance on government intervention was very similar to Rand's (he too was an atheist). Mises was a "minarchist" meaning he believed in the existence of a government tasked only with protecting its citizens from coercion, whether in the form of violence or fraud. Hence, no drugs laws, no labour laws, "social insurance" laws, etc. nothing that impinged upon the rights to liberty and private property.
Edited on Apr 19, 2011 at 4:05pmJun '10
Re: Progressive Tactic of the Week: Link the GOP to Ayn Rand
I wish I'd heard of her when I was young. Maybe I'd be better informed now.
Jun '10
Re: Progressive Tactic of the Week: Link the GOP to Ayn Rand
For what it's worth here a Parts One, Two and Three of the complete interview of Ayn Rand with Mike Wallace so you can see what she says unedited and in context. Was Rand right about every aspect of human nature or correct about her powers of prognostication? Are any of us? It's very convenient to show short clips out of context and cast her or anyone as an extremist; a clever tactic of those on the Left.
Over the course of her life she had a deep and fundamental understanding of what limited government as expressed by the Founders was intended to do and how, at a very basic level, that capitalism was a virtuous and ethical enterprise because it compels men compete and to trade with one another on a civilized basis and not through coercion, force or through an unfair advantage from state support - and most importantly that America at its founding understood that wealth was something that could be created and not seized from one individual to somehow "fairly" support another.
Dec '10
Re: Progressive Tactic of the Week: Link the GOP to Ayn Rand
I've always looked at philosophy as more of a super market, rather than an Army mess line, where you can browse the isles and pick and choose what you want, rather than being issued a set of beliefs that you must accept whole or not at all.
Sure, you can make contradictions for yourself like that, just as you can put mustard and chow mien noodles on chocolate ice cream, but just like with the ice cream, eventually those contradictions will work themselves out (like, for instance, the first time you get to actually taste what you've made for yourself).
Rand had a great many ideas that are worth the time to examine.
I've read all her books on Objectivism, and then Leonard Peikoff's follow up on the Epistemology of Objectivism (a long and arduous slog, that one), and I got goodness out of all of them.
I wouldn't say I buy it all, but a lot of it is spot on. Just because I don't swallow it whole doesn't mean I must cast aside the useful bits as well.
Her definitions of value and human freedom exercised via the choice are excellent.
I think, if truly pressed for a long answer about abortion, she would say that the correct answer is different for everyone (and probably different at different times).
As she explains, people make choices based on what they value most. If your highest value is life, you will choose not to have an abortion, no matter what, and if your highest value is to not have a child at this moment, you will.
Either choice would be "correct" in her view because it corresponded with the highest value of the chooser.
What she found so repugnant about pro-life folks is that they would demand freedom and liberty on the one hand, and then attempt to use the coercion of government to force their preferences onto everyone else.
Yes, killing an unborn child is a horrible act, but it is a choice that must be left up to the person whose actual body is involved.
Make the case against it to them, try to sway them to your way of thinking, but do not resort to coercion of your own if they choose the other path. Judge them for it, think less of them for it, etc, those are all things you can choose to do, but if you can't convince them to change course, you must accept that you lost that fight and move on to the next one.
Bringing the brunt of government to bear on your side is no better than them bringing it to bear on theirs.
That's how I think she'd respond if asked to expound on abortion. She had much the same position on altruistic charity.
Most people falsely assume that she would denigrate freely given charity as being anti-individual, but that's not right.
If your highest value was to see others well and cared for, and you freely gave your own time and money to that end, she would likely congratulate you, or at the very least not condemn you, because it was your choice.
Edited on Apr 19, 2011 at 4:24pmJun '10
Re: Progressive Tactic of the Week: Link the GOP to Ayn Rand
CoolHand:
Yes, killing an unborn child is a horrible act, but it is a choice that must be left up to the person whose actual body is involved. · Apr 19 at 4:07pm
Except that there are two people whose actual bodies are involved, the mother and the unborn child. One person's actual body is mutilated, butchered, and slaughtered. That's what makes it, as you say, a "horrible act."
May '10
Re: Progressive Tactic of the Week: Link the GOP to Ayn Rand
I don't think this will stick. There's too long a paper trail of thoughtful conservative critiques of Ayn Rand--critiques that recognize and admire her valid insights while they deplore her excesses.
Dec '10
Re: Progressive Tactic of the Week: Link the GOP to Ayn Rand
I am a huge Ayn Rand follower, as oppose to Friedrich von Hayek or Ludwig von Mises, because Rand was the first person I had ever come across who defended freedom and capitalism on a moral basis rather than a pragmatic basis. There are many people who defend capitalism by saying "Of course socialism would be great if it worked". Rand was the only one I knew of who stood up and said "Even if socialism worked it would still be morally repugnant." That really resonated with me and still does.
As a person who didn't believe in the supernatural it makes perfect sense she was pro-abortion. To her life didn't begin at conception so there weren't two lives at stake, just one.
As for being against the government using the power of violence to enforce strictly moral laws...you can believe that culture determines the success of a nation without believing that the government should use violence to manipulate that culture.
Jun '10
Re: Progressive Tactic of the Week: Link the GOP to Ayn Rand
Nyadnar17:
As a person who didn't believe in the supernatural it makes perfect sense she was pro-abortion. To her life didn't begin at conception so there weren't two lives at stake, just one. · Apr 19 at 5:55pm
Funny, I learned that life begins at conception in my public school biology and sex ed classes. Been a while, but as I recall half of each parent's DNA fuses creating a zygote that:
Which part of that do you suppose she considered supernatural?
Oct '10
Re: Progressive Tactic of the Week: Link the GOP to Ayn Rand
There is a lot to be said for Rands works and this speaks to some new low in the Left and or Progressive efforts. Whats next ? Jung ? M. Currie ?
Just pull a rabbit out of your hat there...