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Religions > Atheism |
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| Date: |
20 Jul 2005 07:33:35 PM |
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Ayn Rand: Narcissistic Prophet Of Atheism |
Ayn Rand: Narcissistic Scapegoating Leftism
"The Sleep of Reason Breeds Monsters"
--Goya
by Bob Wallace
Evil always attempts to hide behind good.
When I first read Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged many years ago I was
puzzled by my reaction to it. I found it a bizarre mixture of the
fantastic and the banal. I thought it a preposterously bad
quasi-science-fiction novel with a decidedly strange, 1930's retro
feel, even though it was written in the middle '50's. I also thought,
at 1000+ pages, that it would make a pretty good doorstop.
Unlike many, I read it not as a teenager but in my middle twenties, so
I was far beyond Rand's siren call--or the intellectual and emotional
straightjacket some of her fans get permanently trapped in.
When I identified with the former Alice Rosenbaum's fictional
"heroes," (I'll explain the quotes) I felt self-confident, heroic,
brilliant. In my imagination I felt immune to the suffering that
society sometimes heaps on you (and is this not the lament of many
teenagers?) I felt free of the irrational, the boring, the oppressive.
Nirvana! Such certainty! And in some ways, such a radiant vision of
reality. It's no wonder so many of her teenage fans feel enlightened.
Or that they have somehow stumbled upon the key to life. Let's get rid
of all this stupid, ridiculous, boring tradition and start anew!
And yet...I did not feel what the novel promised--joy and love of
life. Toward her "looters" and "parasites" I felt mocking contempt
(how Randian). I judged them the cause of all problems and thought the
world would be better without them. I didn't exactly hate them; I
despised them, felt contempt toward them. I felt sadism-with-a
slight-smile, as if I wanted to torture them. It was the feeling of
revenge. Of an enjoyable cruelty and heartlessness.
It was the feeling of "I haven't been treated right by the world, the
way I should have been, so I'm going to pay you all back." And,
ominously: "I'm better than you." The whole novel seemed like a weird
mixture of upbeat inspirational literature and Aztec human sacrifice.
During the "love" (okay, rape) scenes I felt sadistic, as if I was in
utter control--and rather enjoying it! When I identified with her
"looters" I felt envious and hating--even self- hating. I felt
sadistic, weak, vicious, frightened.
It felt as if Rand was tapping into a primitive, unconscious
archetype. It puzzled me. I had mixed feelings. Some of felt almost
right; a satisfaction at getting back at a world that didn't
appreciate me and wasn't doing me right. But some didn't feel right at
all. It felt dark, sinister. "This is how the Nazis must have felt," I
thought.
I read her philosophy and dismissed it (as a current critic, Scott
Ryan, opines as "frightfully incompetent") because of the same
disturbing feelings (and also because it really is "frightfully
incompetent.")
I know now she was tapping not into my "self-esteem" but my
narcissism, my grandiosity, and my scapegoating. My desire for
revenge. It's what she taps into in many people. Maybe most. (Her
"self-esteem" is just fragile grandiosity, which I will explain.)
This is very bad. Rand pitched a superficial philosophy of freedom,
love and self-sufficiency to get you in her tent. Inside there is the
hate, vengeance and genocide of a cruel, heartless, pitiless
philosophy. What she did is mix together great good (which she
appropriated from others) with great evil, and call it good. But when
you mix good and evil, you don't get good. You get evil.
Because of what she touches in some readers, she is not a philosopher
but a philodoxer, and pure Objectivism can be hazardous to her
followers, to classical liberalism/libertarianism, and to society.
Objectivism, rather than being a sterling defense of free-market
libertarianism, is a narcissistic, scapegoating, and leftist
expression of Rand's Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Because of
this, Objectivism shares with Nazism and Marxism the same
narcissistic, scapegoating, and leftist psychology.
Specifically, Rand took her distortions of the rightist free market
and political liberty and tried to paste them on top of a base of
scapegoating leftism. Looked at this way, it is no surprise that
Objectivism only works in Rand's fiction. In reality it will never
work.
Her fans won't believe this. It's hard to give up a fraudulent
religion. (Albert Ellis was right: Objectivism is a religion--and a
bad one at that.) When faced with criticisms of Rand, many of her fans
suffer a painful cognitive dissonance that causes them to go into
hyperscreech (it's too bad I no longer have their flames: I lost them
all in software crashes. But oh my they were doozies.) To use Thomas
Kuhn's metaphor, since it is outside their paradigm they refuse to see
the criticisms. It's the same reason the priests refused to look
through Galileo's telescope.
I concluded this about Objectivism by using Rand's favorite tactic:
checking premises. Checking her premises. For someone who prided
herself on an obsessive checking of other philosophers' premises (and
almost always "deducing" the wrong conclusions), she was incapable of
checking her own. If she had, she might have realized Objectivism is
(to use her words against her) a system of rationalization and
therefore evil.
As she wrote: "Since an emotion is experienced as an immediate
primary, but is in fact a complex, derivative sum, it permits men to
practice one of the ugliest of psychological phenomena:
rationalization. Rationalization is a cover-up, a process of providing
one's emotions with a false identity, of giving them spurious
explanations and justifications-- in order to hide one's motives, not
just from others, but primarily from oneself. The price of
rationalizing is the hampering, the distortion, and, ultimately the
destruction of one's cognitive facility. Rationalization is the
process not of perceiving reality, but of attempting to make reality
fit one's emotions...evil philosophies are systems of
rationalization."
Her overpowering narcissism, self-deception and rationalization
blinded her to realizing her comments are easily applied to her
writings.
Objectivism is little more than an expression of Rand's character (and
therefore a rationalization, an attempt to make reality fit her
personal whims). Being rationalizing, narcissistic, scapegoating and
leftist, Objectivism is psychologically and philosophically--but not
economically-- the blood brother of Nazism and Marxism. (Politically,
Objectivism is in some ways often quite close to fascism.)
It is beyond dispute that Rand was a walking chapter on psychiatric
disorders. (Any utterly humorless, drug-addicted, cruel, vicious,
paranoid, sadistic, power-mad adulteress who referred to herself as
"the perfect woman" and "the second-greatest philosopher in history"
is severely disturbed, whether officially diagnosed or not.)
Her long-time friend, the psychologist Alan Blumenthal, diagnosed her
as afflicted with, at the least, Narcissistic Personality Disorder.
Even if he had not it's easy to see the narcissism that rampaged
through her life and writings.
Understanding her narcissism and her scapegoating is essential to
understanding Objectivism. Narcissistic scapegoating is so integral to
her beliefs that were it removed they would collapse. It is, to use a
Biblical phrase that Rand never got around to misquoting, a philosophy
erected not on rock but on sand. (As she wrote, "If the foundation
does not hold, neither will anything else.")
Other popular Biblical sayings spring to mind: "false prophet," "wolf
in sheep's clothing," and "the blind leading the blind." Like all
false prophets, she used, to paraphrase Doestoevsky in The Brothers
Karamazov, "miracle, mystery and authority" to seduce her followers.
Narcissism is a character disorder. Character (or personality)
disorders are disorders of responsibility. People blame their problems
on other people: it's not my fault; it's my parents', or society's, or
[fill-in-the -blank]. A neurotic, taking too much reponsibility, feels
too much guilt; a character disorder, not taking enough
responsibility, doesn't feel enough guilt. (A joke is dogs are
neurotic because they always think it's their fault; cats are
character disorders because they always think it's your fault.)
Denying responsibility and narcissistically blaming other people is
scapegoating. Everyone in greater or lesser degree is prone to the
denying reponsibilty. To scapegoat. It is the Original Sin of
humanity.
In the story of "The Garden of Eden," after Adam and Eve are
discovered having eaten the forbidden fruit, Adam blames Eve, and Eve
blames the serpent. Adam scapegoats Eve; Eve scapegoats the serpent.
Each denies responsibility; each projects blame elsewhere. Each tries
to sacrifice the other. In the best version of the story, their
scapegoating gets them in trouble; it gets them kicked out of the
Garden and brings evil into the world (and the reason the serpent
tempted them is because of his envy--he wanted to 'bring them down').
Another myth that clearly demonstrates the destructive power of envy
is Snow White. And in the original version of the Garden of Eden Adam
more sensibly came out of Eve's side. For that matter, since they are
naked and don't know it, they should be better portrayed as children
and not adults, especially since children become aware that they're
not supposed to run around naked--going from "unconsciousness" to
"consciousness"--at about five. Then of course there is the five-year-
old finger-pointing when Daddy catches them breaking the rules.
This ancient myth was often misconstrued to scapegoat women for
"bringing evil into the world," showing a complete lack of
understanding of what the story means, and engaging in what is
forbidden. And for the past few decades feminists have in turn
foolishly scapegoated men, as a rather silly modern book suggests, as
"Demon Males." So it works both ways, back and forth, ad nauseum, ad
infinitum.
The myth recognizes the prevalance and enormity of scapegoating. Myths
don't survive for millenia unless they are universally true.
M. Scott Peck, in his book, The People of the Lie, writes that
scapegoating is involved in "the genesis of human evil." "Scapegoating
works through a mechanism psychiatrists call projection...[people]
project evil onto the world," he writes.
It sounds rather insignificant. But he is right: the main cause of
evil in history is scapegoating. In this century, the two best-known
narcissistic, scapegoating ideologies have been Nazism and Marxism.
The death toll: up to 200 million.
Scapegoating is a hostile psychological--and social--attempt to
discredit, demonize, ostracize and often murder people by moving blame
and responsibility away from the scapegoater and towards a target
person or group. Rage, hate and envy are projected onto from one
person to a nation. Distortion and rationalization are always
features, and envy is the defining characteristic. (When Rand was near
an attractive woman people said they could feel her envy radiating
from her.)
The school of psychology that deals with narcissism is Object
Relations Theory. From it comes explanations for character disorders
such as Narcissistic, Borderline, and Anti-Social Personality
Disorders. (All are different variations of the same disorder:
narcissism.)
Object Relations explains narcissism; narcissism explains
scapegoating, and scapegoating explains evil. (And since people do
these things unconsiously, this means some kind of "unconscious"
really does exist.)
Narcissism is inherent in everyone. The basics are fairly simple:
theorists believe that starting soon after birth babies split their
selves into an "all-good" one and an "all-bad" one. The "all-good"
self is grandiose and god-like. The "all-bad" one is envious, hating,
rageful.
Psychoanalysts Melanie Klein and Joan Riviere believe the origins of
rage, hate, envy and the desire to destroy are rooted in the initial
relationship between the infant's self and what could be called "the
primary caregiver" (usually but not necessarily the mother). They
write, "For the infant child, the mother is the the original and most
complete source of satisfaction. Yet this total pleasure is inevitably
frustrated."
Theorists believe infants experience this frustration as a threatened
destruction of the entire self, since their existence at this age
depends completely the care-giver/mother. This frustration generates
rage, hatred and a wish to annihilate the "bad object."
In the Garden of Eden myth, Eve doesn't scapegoat Adam; Adam
scapegoats Eve, mythologically the mother of all. Eve then scapegoats
the serpent, a symbol not only of envy, but of evil (and this means
not only is envy evil, but that it is so primitive that it is
associated not with animals, but something much less evolved It also
means that envy comes before scapegoating, and leads to it.)
This isn't the only scapegoating in the Bible. In the Gospels the
Pharisees scapegoat the outcasts, although they certainly didn't
engage in the horrific child sacifice of Moloch-worshippers. (Children
were sacrificed to Moloch in a valley known as Gehenna, the place
which Jesus spoke of and which is usually mistranslated as "hell." He
was actually speaking about scapegoating and human sacrifice. 'Hel' is
a Norse pagan goddess who was ruler of the Underworld. The word has no
place whatsoever in the Bible. I prefer C.S. Lewis' version of Hell:
"a state where everone is perpetually concerned about his dignity and
advancement, where everyone has a grievance, and where everyone lives
the deadly serious passions of envy, self-importance and resentment.")
The writers of the New Testament often scapegoat the Jews, thereby
leading to nearly 2,000 years of anti-Semtic persecution (doubly
bizarre in that Jesus was a Jew who forbid scapegoating).
Primitive defenses are generated at the aforementioned stage, the main
one being splitting and projection: the object (and the infant's self)
and divided into good and bad parts. This way, feelings of rage can be
projected onto the "bad object" without the risk of destroying the
"good object."
Riviere writes, "The first and the most fundamental of our insurances
or safety measures against feelings of pain, of being attacked, or of
helplessness-one from which so many others spring--is that device we
call projection. All painful and unpleasant sensations and feelings in
the mind are by this device automatically relegated outside
oneself...[W}e blame them on someone else. [Insofar] as such
destructive forces are recognized in ourselves we claim that they have
come there arbitrarily and by some external agency....[P}rojection is
the baby's first reaction to pain and it probably remains the most
spontaneous reaction in all of us to any painful feeling thoughout our
lives."
Some of the "safety measures"--psychological defenses--that Rand
engaged in, besides projection, were rationalization, denial
(self-deceit), and represssion.
The "good" and "bad" selves are projected onto the world. The
world--and all people--are split into "all-good" and "all-bad." All
problems are projected onto the "all-bad." This projection is
scapegoating.
This splitting and projection--scapegoating--and it the first, the
most primitive and important defense that all people engage in. It
persists in all into adulthood, even if they have no idea they are
doing it (and Rand surely didn't).
If things go relatively well, infants, as they develop into adults,
mostly integrate these two views. However, most people never do it
completely. We are prone, especially under stress, to splitting things
into all-good or all-bad, and to scapegoating--to. seeing ourselves as
good, even grandiose, and to projecting our rage, hate and envy
onto--whatever we perceive, however incorrectly--as the bad. (One only
needs to look at O.J. Simpson to see how this works.)
Richard Restak writes in his book, The Self Seekers, "In instances of
extreme stress...the developing infant is unable to synthesize
contradictory experiences with others and attempts to make up for this
by splitting its internal world into tight compartments of all 'good'
and all 'bad'...later the child and adult...tends to view the world as
filled with people who are all 'good' or all 'bad'...there is no room
for compromise or shades of meaning in this all-or-none world."
Since we are all prone to scapegoating, narcissism can range from one
person to groups of any size, up to and including nations. It can
include families, ethnic groups, and religions--one group scapegoats
another. Erich Fromm, whose life's work was studying narcissism and
evil, called this "group narcissism."
Group narcissism is why throughout history all "tribes" (which is what
modern-day nations are) have grandiosely referred to themselves as
"The Humans," "All Men," "The People," "The Fatherland," "The
Motherland," "God's Chosen People," or "God and Nation," relegating
those outside to scapegoat. This is why, traditionally, religion has
considered the attempt of people to be "perfect" or found "perfect"
societies to be blasphemy.
This is why nations, during war, can easily scapegoat the enemy,
turning them into evil sub-humans. Spielberg's scapegoating of German
soldiers in Saving Private Ryan is a good example. They are brutal,
murdering, cowardly shaven-headed thugs, not a drop of humanity in any
of them (and being shaven-headed they are interchangeable and
identical as cogs. And cogs are things, not people.)
Two movies that do portray the "enemy" as human are The Thin Red Line
and All Quiet on the Western Front (as does Remarque's novel). Compare
these works with Saving Private Ryan and you'll easily see the
differences.
War, for that matter, is probably the greatest scapegoating and human
sacrifice there is: scapegoat the enemy and then sacrifice soldiers
for what almost always has turned out to be nothing.
The ancient Greeks called their sea the Mediterranean (the Middle
Sea-- the middle of the world). Foreigners were mocked as barbarians
because of the way they talked (bar bar bar). The Chinese called China
"The Middle Kingdom"--the Middle of the World. Fromm was right.
Everyone does it, and has through history. And it's easy, being a
natural thing for us to do (however, something being "natural" doesn't
make it right).
Those who cannot integrate their two selves as adults are afflicted
with what psychologists call Narcissistic Personality Disorder. To
these people, everything is either all-good or all-bad, pure good or
pure evil, black or white, no shades of grey. Each self is literally
not aware of the other; they are separated by a nearly inpenetrable
wall of self-deception. And these selves can flip-flop, leading to
people often finding the narcissist nearly incomprehensible.
They are self-centered people who quite often cannot conceive of
others as people and not things. Because they lack a conscience (or
have only a little of one) they are deficient in guilt and remorse.
They believe they are special. They are often insatiably greedy; they
always feel they never have enough. Others always have something more,
something better.
They are deficient in compassion and empathy. They can take but cannot
give. They barely understand the concept of "giving." (As John Galt
commented about Galt's Galch, "...one word...is forbidden in this
valley: the word 'give.'") They think the First Commandment applies to
them: "You shall have no God but me."
Narcissists rarely know anything is wrong with them since they are
convinced problems lie completely with other people.
Ruled by selfishness, they do what they believe is right for them
only. But since they are so rationalizing and self-deceptive, they
don't know what is right for them. If Rand had known what was right
for her, her life would not have been as it was.
Narcissists' relationships with almost everyone fall into what Martin
Buber called "I-It" relationships--others are things. At best they can
have what he called an "I-I" relationship--they project their own
idealized self onto the other person. But they can never have his
"I-Thou" relationship, in which the other person is seen as human. As
Barbara Branden commented, Rand only saw people as abstractions,
collections of psychological traits. Never as people.
Even though they don't know it (and can never admit it), their
dependence on other people is immense. Not only do they project all
evil onto the bad, they project the source of their happiness onto the
good. The "good" is responsible for their happiness. They are utterly
selfish but certainly not independent. They rarely if ever show
gratitude; in fact they often don't understand the concept. Because of
the way they attempt to consciously and unconsciously exploit and
manipulate people, they can, emotionally, be considered "looters" and
"parasites."
Narcissists blame all problems on the "all-bad." It's never the
narcissist's fault; it's always someone else's. Narcissists are
grandiose and feel themselves to be perfect: Rand, as I have
commented, said she was "the perfect woman" and the "second-greatest
philosopher ever" (after Aristotle, and considering what she wrote
about him, she apparently thought herself the greatest. She also
claimed she had solved all philosophical problems.)
A quote from Peck about those who consider themselves "perfect" is
relevant: "Since [narcissists] deep down, feel themselves to be
faultless, it is inevitable that when they are in conflict with the
world they will invariably perceive the conflict as the world's fault.
Since they must deny their own badness, they must perceive others as
bad. They project their own evil onto the world. They never think of
themselves as evil, on the other hand, they consequently see much evil
in others."
People labeled "all-good" are considered perfect, god-like; those felt
to be "all-bad" are literally not considered people: they are
sub-human, even non-human. The "all-good" is the source of their
happiness; the hated, evil "all-bad" is scapegoated as the cause of
their pain and anguish.
Since the "all-bad" is scapegoated as the source of all evil, it has
to be destroyed. To the narcissist, then only the "all-good"--the
outside source of their happiness--will be left.
Rand was severely narcissistic, and narcissism is so prevalent in her
writings it jumps off the page at the reader. Her philosophy is little
more than a rationalized expression of her narcissism. Barbara Branden
was dimly aware of this in her Passion of Ayn Rand when she wrote,
that to Rand, even as a child, everything was either "I value or I
despise."
Rather than Objectivism being a true description of reality, it is a
projection of Rand's sickness. She thought, like Karl Marx, that she
was discovering the true nature of things. In reality, she was, like
Marx, projecting her own whims, rationalizations and distortions onto
the world.
"It is a fact, and in some ways a melancholy fact," writes Paul
Johnson in his book, Intellectuals, "that massive works of the
intellect do not spring from the abstract workings of the brain and
the imagination; they are deeply rooted in the personality."
There are physical reasons for this. The brain is structured so
perceptions travel through the instinctive and emotional parts before
they go to the rational part. Because of this, there is no thought
divorced from emotion; there is no "objectivity." All "philosophy" is
influenced by our character. (When Rand claimed "reason is an abolute"
she either didn't understand the definition of "absolute" or else
tried to redefine it: the "absolute" stands alone, unaffected by
anything. Reason is at least connected to feeling and instinct.)
Johnson's quote was about Karl Marx, but it applies to Rand. Much in
his book applies to her. David Hume's comment about the nearly-insane
Jean-Jacques Rousseau--"a monster who saw himself as the only
important being in the universe"--is applicable to her, as does
Johnson's comment about "social engineering is the creation of
millenarian intellectuals who believe they can refashion the universe
by the light of their unaided reason." She could easily have been a
chapter in his book (I doubt he saw her as being important enough).
Some will claim the message should be criticized, not the messenger.
But when the message is the messenger, you can't criticize one without
criticizing the other.
There are two other myths that apply to Rand beyond the story of the
Garden of Eden. The first is the Greek myth of Narcissus, who became
so enthralled by his reflection that he wasted away and died. Had Rand
paid any attention to this myth, she might have seen how her life was
going to turn out: she died alone, having through the years becoming
more and more narcissistic, losing her tenuous hold on reality, until,
absorbed in her self, she drove everyone away.
The second myth is the story of Satan, a grandiose, envious,
hate-filled psychopath who, because he couldn't be God, rebelled and
wanted to destroy the world and everyone in it. (Even millenia ago,
people understood the enormity of malignant narcissism.) "The urge to
rebellion," writes Nancy Friday in her book, Jealousy,, "so that the
denial of the other's power and the assertion of one's own at any
price, is in us all. We will gain primacy even if it brings the world
down about our ears."
Because of our projection, people have, instead of understanding that
the only satanic exists within us, often projected Satan onto reality.
This is literally scapegoating Satan. ("It's not my fault; the evil is
not in me; it's out there.") And considering Satan "real" is the worst
thing that can be done. It allows believers to scapegoat opponents by
projecting evil onto them--consider modern-day jihads, for example.
The word "Satan" has two meanings: "adversary" and "accuser." He is
also called "the father of lies." Looked at as something within us, we
are dealing with an adversary that accuses (scapegoats) others through
lies.
The pure myth deals with the effects of psychopaths on society. In a
lesser sense, it deals with the feelings created in us when we aren't
treated as we think we should be; the hate, anger and envy we feel
toward those who have what we don't (or are treated as we aren't).
This creates the desire for revenge. These feelings are often
unbearable, and it is no wonder we project them onto others.
The myth of Satan applies to both Rand and Marx, who were much alike
in character. Both were envious, rage-filled haters who wished to see
the world destroyed; both believed in an earthly Utopia; both had
philosophies that weren't much more than expressions of their
characters; and both distorted every fact they could get their hands
on (because they thought, in their grandiose infantile omnipotence,
they could change reality to suit their views. This is what
psychologists refer to as "magical thinking.")
More correctly, narcissists cannot differentiate their thoughts and
feelings from reality outside. They unconsciously believe what they
think and feel is how external reality truly is. (If you ask them if
what they feel is coming from the inside of them, or from the outside,
they often don't know.) This is why Rand believed that any philosopher
who disagreed with her (or said something she didn't understand) must
have been either evil or intellectually dishonest; she, having solved
all philosophical problems in the world, of course was not the source
of conflict: those who disagreed with her were, so she scapegoated
them. Hence her bizarre hatred as Kant as "the most evil man who ever
lived."
Marx was the same: since he had "discovered" the truth he could
tolerate no disagreement. Anyone who did disagree with him was subject
to fits of towering rage and shouted threats of "I will annihiliate
you!" The American senator Carl Schnurs wrote about him: "Anybody who
contradicted him was treated with hardly veiled contempt...he
denounced anybody who dared to contradict his views."
Rand's popular novel, Atlas Shrugged. is an example of her projecting
her character onto the world while claiming she was describing
reality. In this not-that-original retelling of the myth of Noah's
Ark, a vanishingly small group (maybe three dozen?) of perfect,
god-like "all-good producers" are menaced by the "all-bad" looters and
parasites, who, envious and hating, are the cause of all evil.
Rand splits everyone into all-good and all-bad, projects her own
grandiosity onto her "perfect" producers, then projects her own hate,
rage and envy onto her "looters" and "parasites," scapegoats them, and
then engages in a sadistic Hitlerian orgy of hate and destruction and
kills off nearly the whole world. Alan Blumenthal was correct when he
described Objectivism as a a system of psychotherapy for Rand. One
that didn't work.
About the two characters Rand didn't scapegoat were Eddie Willers (who
can do little more than worship the goddess Dagny his whole life
before wandering into the desert to die), and Cheryl, who commits
suicide because of Rand's distortions of philosophical Idealism. And
that suicide-because- reality-is-all-gooey, is, probably, about the
only original thing Rand ever did. But, as the saying goes, "What is
good is not original, and what is original is not good."
Like Hitler and Marx, Rand believed that her apocalyptic vision of the
world would lead to Utopia: destroy "evil" and reclaim the Garden of
Eden. (An Eden in which there is light, color and happiness; the
outside world is a darkness referred to as a "hell" populated by
"sub-humans.")
A Utopia always involves destruction. It may be of the "old," but it's
still massive, catastrophic destruction. What would happen if this
Utopia was so remote from reality as to be unrealizable, as Galt's
Gulch is? As Leszek Kolakowski has written, "the wish to enforce it
would be grotesque," leading to a "monstrous deformation" threatening
the very freedom of mankind. (He was speaking of the Left. But more
about that later.)
The most famous line from Atlas is worth exploring: "I swear by my
life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another
man, nor ask another man to live for mine." The line is fiction, and
always will be. Because of the narcissism inherent in human nature,
the line translates into reality this way: "I will live my life for
myself only, and you will also live your life for me only." This is
how Rand led her life. It is how all narcissists attempt to lead their
lives.
At the end of the novel, she literally stamps her foot and exclaims,
"And I mean it!" She applauded genocide, She said she meant it.This
was not a sane woman--this was a loon. Such eruptions of viciousness
and hate are rare in best-selling books. But there are others.
One example of well-known hate-filled "literature" that splits and
projects is the infamous Turner Diaries, which scapegoats blacks and
Jews. Another, Mein Kampf, scapegoats Jews and Marxists (actually
Jewish Marxists). (Although Shirley Jackson's short story "The
Lottery" is considered the finest example of scapegoating, I prefer
Saki's "Sredni Vashtar").
For all their superficial differences in plot, all three books have
the same despicable psychology in common: we will be happy after we
get rid of these dangerous, threatening people.
Readers will protest that Rand correctly blamed "evil" on socialists.
No, not quite. She blames evil on everyone not in Galt's Gulch,
socialist or not. She gleefully murders innocent children in a
train-tunnel collapse (I wonder if Rand had any abortions, and if so,
how many?) and then has Dagny slowly and really quite sadistically
murder a hapless guard who has proven himself (to her rationalizing
satisfaction) to be--guess what?--not quite human (I also wonder how
many people read this scene and cheer? And, for that matter, cheer all
the destruction and genocide in the novel?)
There is some truth in her writings: socialism is the cause of a
horrendous amount of evil in the world. I think this is what fools so
many people. But this observation is not the slightest bit original
with her; she cribbed it from such people as Isabel Paterson and
Ludwig von Mises (without attribution, of course--after all, being
perfect, she did it all on her own) But she fails to make the
distinction between earned and unearned guilt; she punishes the
innocent with the "guilty."
As Whittaker Chambers has noted, she lumps everyone outside Galt's
Gulch into an "undifferentiated damnation." He also commented on the
black-or- white nature of her characters, referring to them as
"Children of Light" and "Children of Darkness."
Not only is Atlas a prime example of splitting and projection, so it
Objectivism. In it, Rand splits the world into grandiose, perfect
"reason, selfishness and capitalism" on one side, and evil "mysticism,
altruism and collectivism" on the other. She scapegoats the latter.
She projects her hate, her envy, her desire for destruction onto them,
and wants them annihilated, just as she wanted the world annihilated
in Atlas Shrugged.
Splitting and projection, narcissism, and scapegoating are the same
thing. All believe in mass murder. All are, in their essential
psychology, identical. Each believes in human sacrifice: we must
murder these people to save ourselves. Once they are dead, then we
will be happy. Free. Perfect.
Although the Nazis are thought by many to be the worst modern
scapegoaters, the Marxists topped them. The Nazis split humanity into
the grandiose, perfect Aryans and the evil non-Aryans, then
scapegoated these "non-human" "looters" and "parasites". Eleven
million of these scapegoats died in the camps. (Contrary to popular
belief, Hitler tried to annihilate both Judaism and Christianity--six
million Jews died, the other five million being Christians, Eastern
Europeans, Gypsies, the deformed, and the ill.)
The Marxists neatly split people into the evil capitalist exploiters
and the noble exploited workers--and from this springs the worst mass
murder ever.
Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn, in Leftism Revisited, noted that the
envy-ridden Marx admired "only aristocrats." Since admiration is a
"benevolent" form of envy, Marx imitated aristocrats by wearing a
monocle and engaging in fox hunts. Kuehnelt-Leddihn also evaluated
Marx's poetry as "consist[ing] of volcanic eruptions of hatred strewn
with abounding expressions of megalomania."
Eugene Ionesco noted that "Marx must have suffered a secret wound to
his pride, as did all those who want revolutions. It is this secret
wound which he hides, consciously or not."
His "secret" wound must have involved envy, the most painful feeling
of the narcissist. Envy was Rand's "secret wound," as it is of all
narcissists. Restak writes, "If any human emotion would be considered
most typical of the narcissist, it's envy...in a world where there are
only winners and losers...the success of others is unendurable."
Marx's father wrote this to him: "[You] are at odds with the world
because [you] cannot own, without effort and toil, beautifully
furnished palaces, vast fortunes, and elegant carriages."
If Marx had been born rich there would have never been a Marxism.
His abysmal failures in life, his non-aristocratic background and
ineptness in handling money corroded his soul and helped create his
envy and hatred against the wealthy aristocracy; the envy created his
desire for violence and the lust for power to bring them down. This
"godless self-god," as Heinrich Heine called him, created a false,
clear (but easily understood) ideology that has had catastrophic
results for the human race. And all because of his narcissism. Not
because of his desire to find the truth.
Hitler, like Marx, was a failure; never promoted beyond private,
rejected by art and architectural schools; then humiliated by selling
hand-colored posters in coffee houses. Kuehnelt-Leddihn described him
as "easily hurt, quickly offended, tortured by inferiority
complexes..."
William Buckley relates the story that Rand was once babbling to
Ludwig von Mises about her beliefs. Mises, finally unable to tolerate
her silliness, told her was being very foolish. Rand burst into tears
and accused Mises of treating her like "a poor, ignorant little Jewish
girl." Mises--himself Jewish--retorted, "That is exactly what you
are!"
It's worth repeated: combining the U.S.S.R., China and the rest of the
world the leftist toll is 100 million to 200 million dead in this
century.
Objectivism is as scapegoating as Nazism and Marxism. (Rand one-upped
both: she offed nearly the entire world.) Because of this, Objectivism
has a great amount of evil in it.
Rand projected her narcissism onto the world and into her writings.
This projection explains nearly all of her scapegoating philosophy.
The genocidal, human sacrifice parallels with Nazism and Marxism are
clear to those with eyes.
Some will claim the Nazis and Marxists worshipped the State, and Rand
was opposed to Statism. True enough. But since Objectivism shares much
the same psychology as these other ideologies, it only increases our
narcissism and scapegoating. No good ultimately can come from this.
Although the basic political principle of Objectivism is that no man
may initiate force against another, it fails to note it supports
narcissism so strongly that sooner or later someone will initiate
force against others. This has been the history of the world.
When narcissists gain political power, devastation very often follows.
Consider Caligula (who declared himself a god), Hitler, Stalin, Mao
Tse-tung and Saddam Hussein to see what they did (and still do, and
will always do). Even if they don't gain political power, they are
still extraordinarily manipulative and sadistic, enjoying power and
control over others, seeking worship as gods. One only needs to look
at Rand's life for confirmation.
Her pasting her misconceptions of the free market and political
liberty on top of her base of narcissistic scapegoating leftism has
caused more than a few problems. Instead of seeing that capitalism is
a system where everyone is dependent on no one in particular because
they are dependent on everyone in general, she made it dependent only
on her Few Great Ones. She tried to claim the essence of the free
market is pure grandiose narcissism. All advances come from her gods;
the rest of the world, populated by envious moochers, doesn't count.
(If she ever read Leonard Read's classic "I, Pencil," you'd never know
it from anything she wrote.)
If there's been a John Galt in history, I don't know where this
psychopathic polymath has been hiding. True polymaths are such as the
brilliant and empathic M.D. Samuel Hahnemann (who could read several
languages), who created homeopathy. (For that matter, there is only
one doctor in Galt's Gulch. The assumption is that her "gods" almost
never need them.)
Quite a few advances come from ordinary people such as Thomas Crapper,
whose unfortunate name has been immortalized in his invention of the
flush toilet, the creation of which saved more lives than all the
vaccines in the world put together. I can't imagine him being a
character in Atlas Shrugged.
Rand's worst mistake about political libery is her misunderstanding of
the Second Amendment: she thought retaliatory force should be reserved
for her heroes runing the government. This is the classic recipe for
totalitarianism. Since she despised "the common man" as sub-human, she
was afraid he might enter innocent peoples' homes during a dispute and
shoot the inhabitants.
Objectivism is a less-than-marginal philosophy outside of
libertarianism. Were it a major philosophy we would see more character
disorders--more narcissists, borderlines and psychopaths. (She should
have titled The Virtue of Selfishness instead The Virtue of
Narcissism, and defined Objectivism as the "evaluation of the
objective facts of reality according to my subjective narcissism.")
Conservatives won't have her. Her beliefs were booted out over 40
years ago when Whittaker Chambers shredded Atlas Shrugged in National
Review. Leftists won't have her; they sneer at the mess she was and
believe she represents what they misperceive as capitalism.
Conservative libertarians ignore her, possibly hoping she might
someday just go away. Only one place is she unfortunately accepted:
the Randian wing of libertarianism.
Objectivism will never be a major philosophy. It's had its chance for
almost 50 years. It's no coincidence that movies such as Dirty Dancing
and television programs such as "Futurama" and "South Park" singled
out her writings for disparagement.
One of the worst aspects of her major characters is they exhibit
substantial psychopathic traits. Psychopaths are the most malignant,
extreme form of a narcissist. They are grandiose and have no
conscience, guilt or remorse. They are utterly selfish. They are
solipists; to them, there is only their Self. Everyone else is a thing
to be enjoyed for the psychopath's perverse satisfaction. They are
scapegoaters par excellence.
This disorder is associated with murder, including serial murder. As
mentioned, the myth of Satan is the story of a psychopath-- a
grandiose, destructive being, absent of empathy. (For something
current, these three psychopathic traits predominate in school
shootings, especially the ones in Colorado. Eric Harris had read Atlas
Shrugged and written "Kill Mankind" on his website. He and Klebold
were scapegoats in school, as were most of the other shooters. The
notorious killers Leopold and Loeb were avid followers of Nietzsche, a
major but sometimes unacknowledged influence on Rand. She often toted
Nietzsche's books around when younger but vehemently denied it the
rest of her life. Lying wasn't that unusual for her.)
When Jesus said "he who calls his brother a 'fool' is in danger of
Gehenna," he was pointing out that he who scapegoats had better be
prepared to be scapegoated in return. This is what serial killers do;
most of them scapegoated and abused as children by their parents.
Generally they have a cruel, hateful mother and weak or absent father;
this accounts for the fact most kill women. They hate them and wish to
"get back" at their mothers by murdering innocent women. It's a
complex witch's brew of hate, envy and vengeance.
Psychopaths scapegoat other people as the cause of their problems.
Sometimes, because of their hate, rage and envy, they remove dozens of
people from the Earth; these are the serial killers. These killers
invariably hone their murderous fantasies in their imaginations before
trying them in reality.
The hate they feel comprises intolerable feelings of fear,
helplessness, and inferiority against "wrongs" received at the hands
of a perceived superior. Envy, hate's blood brother, is a mixture of
feelings of helplessness and inferiority against a perceived superior
having something the envier aches for. Both hate and envy wish the
destruction of the alleged superior.
Psychopathic serial killers don't have much else than a grandiose self
and a devalued self. They project their hate and rage onto others;
when the feelings are unbearable they kill, then feel all-powerful and
grandiose. Then the cycle repeats itself. There is no love, no
conscience, no remorse, no guilt. Psychologists believe they are stuck
at less than three years (maybe even three months) old, before
conscience develops. There is no cure; those who study them suggest
they aren't truly human, but instead monsters.
Heinz Kohut, a seminal thinker in Object Relations Theory, wrote this
about homicidal psychopaths: "The enemy who calls forth the archaic
rage of the narcissistically vulnerable, is seen by him...as a flaw in
a narcissistically perceived reality."
Restak writes, "Homicidal rage is the ultimate measure resorted to in
an effort to repair the damaged sense of self." The plot of Atlas!
Apply these words to Hitler, Marx and Rand, all obsessed with
grandiose fantasies of world destruction, all using their warped,
surrealistic ideologies as self-psychotherapy.
One psychopath did make himself very well-known in Objectivism: Lonnie
Leonard, the Objectivist "psychotherapist," sexual predator, and
serial rapist. He made a career verbally, emotionally and physically
abusing his emotionally fragile patients. His being an Objectivist is
not coincidence: narcissistic philosophies attract narcissistic (and
psychopathic) people. Leonard received the highest approval from the
top ranks of the Objectivist movement.
Unsurprisingly, Leonard claimed he was "the perfect man," one whose
career was ended after he was sued by an abused patient, Ellen Plasil,
who wrote her autobiography, Therapist, about his brutal degradation
of her and his other patients. This book should be read by anyone
interested in Rand. Leonard was not an anomaly; he is the logical end
result of Objectivism.
Plasil's parents were true Objectivists: her father molested her and
her sadistic mother hated her without reason. Perfect Randroid
examples of not taking another's feelings into account--even their
daughter's.
Leonard could have modeled himself on Rand's "perfect man," Howard
Roark of The Fountainhead. Roark might show the most psychopathic
traits of all her heroes.
She described Roark as being the "perfect man," wrote he was "born
without the ability to consider other people," and made several
comments how he looked at people as if "they weren't there." He claims
he is "not kind" and, like Leonard, is a rapist. These traits fit one
psychiatric diagnosis: Anti-Social Personality, a
sociopath/psychopath.
John Galt shows many psychopathic traits. For a Messiah, he shows no
conscience about letting most of the world die (he not approves of it;
he is the cause of it). In Atlas he is grandiose, bitter and hating,
and shows not the slightest guilt, remorse or compassion. He
complains, mostly in his radio rant, that everyone is abusing his
greatness.
In a world in which most did consider themselves "perfect" people
would be busy manipulating, exploiting and scapegoating everyone else.
"Perfect" people blaming other "perfect" people. In imagination, it's
humorous. In reality, there's nothing the slightest bit funny about
it.
Roark is a rapist, and Galt is a semi-rapist. The woman they rape (or
semi-rape) are masochists. This sadomasochism (which are obviously
Rand's sexual fantasies projected into fiction) is narcissistic. The
cruelty and sadism of the rapes are expressions of narcissistic
grandiosity, and masochism is an expression of self-devaulation.
Fromm said this about sadism: "...the core of sadism, common to all
its manifestations, is the passion to have absolute and unrestricted
control over a human being...[t]o force someone to endure pain or
humiliation without being able to defend himself is only one of the
manifestations of absolute control, but it is by no means the only.
The person who has complete control over another human being makes
this being into his thing, his property, while he becomes the other
person's god."
He described sadists as "cowardly...impotent, unalive,
powerless...[who] try to compensate for this lack by having power over
others, by transforming the worm he feels himself to be into a god."
Either nothing, or everything.
Rand had more than a little in common with the Marquis de Sade. Both
wrote massive tracts; both were leftist materialists who fervently
hated all religion; both wrote about sexual sado-masochism. Both had
typically leftist beliefs--internally contradictory, i.e. lacked
coherence, and also lacked correspondence to reality, which is why
leftism can only be applied though force. Both were disappointed in
the real world, lived almost completely in their imaginations, and
tried to make reality fit their beliefs.
The psychological dynamics are obviously more complicated than Rand's
simplistic view. Galt and Roark would in reality be like all
psychopaths: a conscienceless "grandiose" self," consumed with power
and control, attempting to repress an unbearably painful "devalued"
self.
Rand's villains are more realistic than her heroes. She obviously knew
much more about hate, rage and envy than she did of love and gratitude
(there is no gratitude in her work). This is why her "heroes" are
two-dimensional and her concept of love falls flat.
Galt and Roark are exemplars of Rand's "Hero (or Man) Worship" (which
is her "grandiose self" projected onto reality). Ernest Becker wrote
this about "hero worship:" "When we look for the 'perfect' human
object we are looking for someone who will allow us to express our
will completely, without any frustration or false notes. We want an
object that reflects a truly ideal image of ourselves. But no human
can do this...the shadow of imperfection falls over our lives...we get
back a reflection from our loved objects that is less then the
grandeur and perfection we need to nourish ourselves. We feel
diminished by their shortcomings. Our interiors feel feel empty or
anguished, our lives valueless..."
At the end of her life, Barbara Branden reports, Rand stood looking
out a window, then asked, wearily, "What was it all for?" (The answer:
for her Self alone, which meant for nothing.)
Becker also wrote the attempt to achieve a "heroic self-image" is the
root cause of evil, because it requires the expiation of guilt to make
us "perfect," i.e, scapegoating. This is why Rand's "heroism" must
require human sacrifice.
Because Rand believed in men (but not women) as gods, there was no
room in her philosophy for any concept of god, or any religion,
whether Western or Eastern. This rejection and degradation of all
religion leads to philosophical materialism, with life and mind being
just epiphenomena.
Materialism is ultimately nihilism. With a meaningless universe what
often happens is our satanic desire for destruction is projected into
reality. (This is why when Hitler realized the war was lost he ordered
nearly everything in Germany destroyed; fortunately he was ignored.)
People always must have meaning. They'll impose it if they believe
it's not there. If they don't believe in something beyond themselves
they'll believe in--and glorify--their selves, their tribe, or their
nation, as God, devaluing outsiders and, historically, slaughtering
them.
Rand, like de Sade and Marx, didn't believe in imago Dei, Man in the
image of God: they believed in Man as God. How dare the universe have
inherent meaning! Such as affront to these self-proclaimed gods. The
only meaning shall be what they give it. This is why Rand claimed the
physical/material universe was "benevolent," even though it clearly
isn't (at least not totally.) It shall be as she commands. And de Sade
wrote the universe should "humor my whims." Restak wrote of seeing a
narcissist's graffito: "There is no God but me."
Rand's philosophy isn't original: it's as old as the story of Satan.
Her grandiose "perfect men" didn't fare well in real life. Her
husband, the alcoholic ne'er-do-well Frank O'Conner, was financially
dependent on her their entire marriage. In her narcissistic
rationalization and self-deception she claimed that he was, like John
Galt, "on strike" against the world. The reality was different. She
was somehow able to maintain her delusion about him thoughout their
lives, and even after his death. In his case she never devalued him,
although she could never admit what he was. She always maintained an
"I-I" relationship with him, projecting her own idealized self, in the
character of John Galt, onto him.
Then there was Nathaniel Branden, who later became her adulterous
ex-boyfriend and ex-intellectual heir. When she found he was
"cheating" on her she devalued him. He went from being a grandiose
"perfect man" to being hated, scapegoated and ostracised. All-good or
all-bad, nothing inbetween.(It never occured to her than Branden had
done to her as she had done to her husband. Narcissists, utterly
self-absorbed, find it nearly inconceivable to consider anyone's
feelings but their own.) In moments Branden plummeted from an "I-I" to
an "I-It."
This leaves the borderline. Whereas narcissism is associated with
manipulation, and psychopathy with murder/serial murder, the
borderline is associated with murder/suicide within an intimate
relationship. Most male batterers are borderlines; they split their
image of their wives or girlfriends into either "all-good" Madonnas or
"all-bad" Whores (and this is how these categories were created).
Female borderlines see men either as heroes or bastards.
Lissa Roche may have been a borderline. Indoctrinated with Rand's
philosophy as a teenager, she believed in worshipping men as heroes
(Rand described the essence of femininity as worshipping a man).
Roche, who was having an adulterous affair with her husband's father,
shot herself when he divorced his wife and married someone else. This
became a well-known scandal because the affair was with George Roche,
the president of Hillsdale College. Whether or not she would have
killed herself sans Rand's influence is something we will never know.
An Objectivist society would mean more Hitlers, Stalins, Ted Bundys
and O.J. Simpsons. And Lissa Roches. (It would mean more criminals,
since they are by defintion narcissistic: they are unconcerned with
their victims' feelings.)
How does leftism fit into this? One description of leftism could be:
reason (or "rationalism") as opposed to tradition. Reason is to plan
and run society. The traditions of society and religion are
oppressive, because they repress the natural goodness and greatness of
select human beings.
Bringing the good news are the Messiahs, who, being intellectually and
morally superior to the benighted masses, destroy hated society,
tradition and religion so that the innate vast talents of some will
blossom and create Utopia. Because all religions are "oppressive,"
they are false, and philosophical materialism is true. Opponents are
not merely mistaken but willfully evil, and must be scapegoated and
destroyed.
"Reason" belongs to the Messiahs. The average person is deficient in
it or else should defer to the elite because of their intellectual
inferiority. However, reason belongs only to individuals, not to any
kind of collective, even a group of Messiahs.
Leftism isn't just socialism. One can be a leftism without being a
socialist. Rand was a non-socialist leftist. The Nazis and Communists
were socialist leftists. All wanted to destroy society, forgetting
that traditions take hundreds if not thousands of years to develop.
Destroying them leaves people rootless...with the new roots planned by
a junior-high school understanding of "reason." But all had in common
the desire to destroy tradition and replace it with a
"rationally"-planned society.
Rand, as her journals and letters show, deliberately pitched
Objectivism toward left-liberals, presenting it as a non-Statist
replacement for tradition, religion and conservatism. What she didn't
realize is that she retained the leftism in her philosophy.
Objectivism, like all philosophies, is a vision of reality. It is, to
use Thomas Sowell's phrase, a leftist "vision of the annointed." "What
a vision may offer," he writes, "is a special state of grace for those
who believe in it. Those who accept the vision are deemed to be not
merely factually correct but morally on a higher plane. Put
differently, those who disagree with the prevailing vision are seen
not merely in error, but in sin." And being in sin are "evil" and
therefore scapegoated.
Roughly speaking, a "conservative" (or rightist) is one who believes
society exists to repress and transform "bad" human nature. "Liberals"
believe the opposite: human nature is mostly "good" but repressed by
society. Conservatives have the better of this particular argument.
The Ten Commandments, ("Commandments" is correctly translated "Words"
or "Utterances") for example, are prohibitions against our animal
natures: don't murder and don't steal, which animals do to each other
as their nature. (If these laws are followed, not as religion but as
practical wisdom, what arises is minimal government with the least
crime, the most civilization, and an automatic free market. Just about
everyone can memorize ten laws, which are a lot wiser than most give
them credit for: we are, for example, enjoined to honor our parents,
but not necessarily love them.)
Society and our animal natures are mostly opposed to each other.
Government exists as an "interface" between society and nature: it's
there to support society by repressing the animal. This lends credence
to the classical liberal/libertarian position that government can only
expand by destroying society, and when it does, unleashes our animal
natures. (This doesn't mean that society doesn't repress, or that all
societies are good, or that some aren't better than others.)
Since narcissism, splitting and projection, and scapegoating are part
of our "bad" animal natures, when they are encouraged they will erupt
from our animal natures into society and destroy it, as Marxism and
Nazism did.
Leftists are also (in the literary sense) Romantics--and Rand, who
proudly proclaimed herself a "Romantic writer," penned a book about
art called The Romantic Manifesto. Romantics are almost always
psychological and political leftists--they hate the world and wish to
see it destroyed, and live in their imaginations. As Colin Wilson
writes in The Misfits, "Come with me into the world of
imagination--forget your everyday life..." (There is nothing wrong
with this but many Romantics go much too far, with unpleasant
consequences--they expected reality to conform to their views.)
Leftists are much like some teenagers: they feel oppressed, see the
problems in the world, and wish to solve them. How? By government, the
use of force, to destroy the existing order. But they feel they are
above laws they wish others to obey.
Rand has not only much in common with de Sade (one of the founders of
leftism) but also other childish, self-indulgent writers such as Henry
Miller. All insisted man had no responsibility except to himself.
"Classic" writers have always insisted such a philosophy of
"individualism" would end in nihilism and futility. One problem is
leftists, narcissists and Romantics never grow up. They may be
intellectually brilliant but still remain emotionally childish or
infantile. (As Thomas Hobbes wrote, "The evil man is the child grown
strong.")
Romantics and leftists also use their feelings or "intuition" to make
decisions. Feelings first, then unconsciously distort the facts to
fit. Marx was a master at it, and so was Rand. One needs only to read
Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology to see her claim she knew how
children and animals thought. How? Not though her "reason," but
through her feelings, her "intuition." Not a scrap of evidence to back
up her beliefs. She based her beliefs on her feelings, then distorted
the facts. In her self-deception she had no idea she was doing this.
She insisted reality was going to be what she wanted it to be.
According to Kuehnelt-Leddihn this lack of respect for the facts and
the subsequent reliance on feelings or "intuition" is what produces
leftists like Hitler, FDR and Woodrow Wilson--the three of them
responsible for two world wars.
Sowell described leftists as believing in what he calls the
"unconstrained" (or what he mocks as "the annointed") vision, and
rightists as believers in the "constrained" or tragic vision.)
Objectivism falls almost squarely into the leftist, unconstrained
vision: human capabilities are vast for the "annointed;" there are
solutions to problems; knowledge consists largely of the articulated
intelligence of the educated few, and the kinds of decisions preferred
are categorical instead of incremental.
It is obvious from Rand's writings that Objectivism is strongly
leftist.
Her adulation of "reason," her hatred of tradition, religion and
society, her god-like "Messiahs," her belief in quick solutions
("Withdraw and let them die!"), her desire for Utopia, her literary
Romanticism and her scapegoating of opponents as evil and subhuman,
are almost purely leftist. A large chunk of Rand's philosophy--and
most of her non-fiction style-- could have been lifted staight from
1939's "Dialectical and Historical Materialism" in History of the
Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
The belief is Utopia is ominous. Rightists don't believe in a Heaven
on Earth. Many leftists do. However, the more someone believes in an
earthly Utopia, the more someone else is going to be scapegoated and
ultimately murdered. The leftist road to Heaven on Earth leads
straight to Hell. This might be why in the myth of the Garden of Eden,
an angel with a flaming sword bars the way back: don't try it, you'll
be sorry.
Rand portrayed Galt's Gulch as the perfect world. A perfect world of
reason, selfishness and capitalism. A Utopia, an Eden. I'm
free-market, but I know it's not perfect. A "perfect" world is a
Heaven in fantasy, but a Hell in reality.
A non-religious definition of idolatry could be to see a partial
aspect of reality as the whole of it, to blindly see the imperfect as
"perfect," the false as true, and refusing to change your mind no
matter how many facts are to the contrary. It doesn't particularly
matter what is idealized--it can be a person, a thing, a book, a
philosophy, or an ideology. Using this definition, idolators are alway
scapegoaters, and scapegoaters are always idolators. (Before Nazi mass
murderer Adolf Eichmann was executed he finally realized what he was,
and commented, far too late to do any good for anyone, "I was an
idealist." Or, as Voltaire wrote, "The Best is the enemy of the
Good.")
More people have probably died throughout history from conscious
"idealism" (when scapegoating is involved) than from conscious evil
(how many people really think they are evil?) Hence the saying, "No
good deed goes unpunished."
Leftism is inherently narcissistic and scapegoating. Were the
splitting and projection removed from it, there wouldn't be much
leftism left. (Scapegoating exists in rightism, but is a fraction of
that in leftism.)
Conservatism--a type of "rightism"--is scapegoating to the extent that
it sees those who engage in "biological" behavior, e.g. drug use and
drug selling, as evil people who should be imprisoned. However, this
type of scapegoating can be removed. I don't see how scapegoating can
be removed from leftism without destroying it. Not scapegoating the
"wealthy" should mean not being envious of them and not wanting to
steal their money through taxes.
Leftists generally idolize government and minority cultures but
scapegoat the dominant culture. Logically this leads to tribal warfare
and ultimately a totalitarian government to restore order and keep
warring factions from each other's throats.
Some political conservatives scapegoat drug sellers and users,
clapping them in prison and sacrificing them upon the altar of public
opinion. Some religious conservatives scapegoat homosexuals, declaring
AIDS to be "God's punishment." Then some homosexuals scapegoat their
critics as "homophobes" because they criticize dangerous behavior.
Many want to scapegoat, and others, self-deluded, self-righteously
believe they are scapegoated. Everyone is always pointing their finger
at someone else, forgetting the truth of the saying, "Take the log out
of your own eye before you worry about the speck in your brother's."
Leftists rarely leave their fantasy world no matter how much reality
intrudes, or how many die. This is why there exists the quote,
"Insanity is trying the same thing over and over and expecting a
different result." As Jean Francois Revel has written,
"Authoritarian socialism has failed almost everywhere, but you will
not find a single Marxist who will say it has failed because it was
wrong or impractical. He will say it failed because nobody went far
enough with it. So failure never proves that a myth was wrong."
This quote applies to anything--any idol--that people "worship," be it
religious or political.
The greatest scapegoater of them all--and always has been--is the
State. I believe a good rule of them for finding bad laws is to ask if
they scapegoat anyone or not--i.e. drug laws (users and sellers are
"bad" people--the country would be so much better if they were all
gone).
What would happen if the narcissism, splitting and projection,
scapegoating, and leftism were removed from Rand's philosophy? (Well,
for one thing, all those people in Atlas Shrugged wouldn't be dead.)
Objectivism would collapse completely. Rand could no longer scapegoat
"mysticism, altruism, and collectvism." She could no longer enshrine
"reason, selfishness, and capitalism" as perfection. She couldn't
scapegoat people in general, or tradition, or society, or religion.
Nor would there be any god-like Messiahs to worship. (Again, false
prophets and wolves in sheep's clothing. And all false prophets think
they are sui generis, unique bringers of the Good News.
Actually, if you took the scapegoating out of inherently scapegoating
philosophies--such as socialism, leftism and liberalism (with its "us
vs. them" attitude and politics of class envy), they would all
collapse. Leftism is indeed ultimately based on envy--everyone is
supposed to be "equal" to avoid that envy. But only that which is
identical is equal. Two quarters are equal because they are identical.
This, obviously, doesn't apply to people, unless you stick them on
some Procrustean bed.
Rand could not longer make a split between "selfishness" and
"altruism" (and no one but her ever supported her misdefinition of
"altruism"). In reality the split doesn't exist. She make the mistake
of not realizing there are three types of "self" behavior: to live
only for yourself (narcissism); to live only for others (what she
called altruism"), and to live in a way that takes yourself and others
into account. She forgot about the third. Objectivism supports only
the first, which traditionally (and with the best of reasons) has been
considered evil.
What Rand utterly failed to realize is all of the evil done by
religion has been done by the narcissim and scapegoating in it: since
we have God on on side you must have the Devil on yours. Religion is
ultimately--at its best--supposedly to be anti-narcissistic; they is
why, as C.S. Lewis has noticed in his book, The Abolition of Man, the
anti-narcissistic Golden Rule exists in every religion (and every
moral code).
Has religion lived up to its ideals? Of course not. But that doesn't
mean that it's the main source of evil, as Rand so fervently and
blindly believed.
Atlas Shrugged and Mein Kampf could be considered textbooks for
founding a religious cult. Set yourself up as an all-knowing guru.
Write a bible to spread your gospel. Target the lost and aimless. Tell
them they are great but oppressed by their inferiors. Scapegoat the
inferiors and claim they are an imminent danger. An apocalyse is
looming! Do something! Quick! Destroy them!
Is Objectivism a religion? Mostly, it is. Rand created a rationalist
(actually rationalizing) ideology and tossed tradition straight out
the window. Without tradition (and this means family and other support
groups) Objectivists can only fall into a cult mentality. Therapist
shows this clearly. Leonard was idealized by other Objectivists as
close to a god, and when Plasil exposed him as a psychopathic rapist
her Objectivst "friends" closed ranks against her. She was trying to
destroy the new meaning in their lives, since the old traditional
meanings had been abandoned.
Unfortunately, rationalist ideologies (which are overwhelmingly
leftist) almost always support "lower," biological values such as
envy, grandiosity and scapegoating.
There would still be a split between "capitalism" and "collectivism."
This is a true split, and the only one Rand got right (and I'll repeat
it wasn't original with her, as she claimed). What she got terribly
wrong is scapegoating "collectivists."
Rightists generally don't scapegoat leftists; they see them as stupid,
or ignorant, or deluded, or just plain goofy. "Disagree with someone
on the right and he is likely to think you are obtuse, wrong, foolish,
a dope," writes Joseph Epstein. "Disagree with someone on the left and
he is more likely to think you are selfish, a sell-out, insensitive,
possibly evil." (These are leftist traits projected on rightists.)
Leftists, being narcissistic, scapegoat rightists and see them not as
honestly mistaken but evil. One only needs to look at how liberal
Democrats traditionally scapegoat Republicans (or how they currently
scapegoat guns and tobacco). And, leftists, since they are convinced
they are right, apparently can't forgive their opponents.
And when leftists scapegoat the "rich" as greedy, selfish, envious and
thieving (and I know some of them are), it's more the case of leftists
projecting their own characteristics. If it wasn't, then the leftist
"cure" wouldn't involved greedily, enviously, and selfishly stealing
the money of well-to-do people. (David Horowitz, himself a former
leftist--and a fervent one--nows correctly refers to leftism as "an
infantile disorder." It is, as I mentioned, based on magicial
thinking-- reality will change to suit our views.)
Rand, an idolator and a leftist, scapegoated her opponents as evil.
The cause of the world's problems. They're non-human, they're
vermin--rub them out!
I think this is why the very first Commandmant is a prohibition
against idolatry. For an example, serial killers idolize and worship
their own selves. They then scapegoat as human sacrifice innocent
victims for their selves-as-God. Idolatry always involves sacrifice to
the idol. Moloch was actually an physical idol that babies were burned
to death inside.
Instead of seeing "collectivists" as deluded or honestly mistaken,
Rand scapegoats all of them as evil. Her scapegoating places her
squarely in the leftist camp.
Her leftist scapegoating brings to mind Nazis and Socialists
scapegoating each other before WWII. Hitler and the other Nazis
commented many times how easy it was to turn a Socialist into a Nazi
(which means "National Socialist.") Same kind of person, and
essentially the same kind of philosophy.
It's well-known that in the early Objectivist movement it wasn't very
hard to turn an Objectivist into a Scientologist. (As Russell Kirk has
written, "If you'll believe selfishness is a virtue, you'll believe
anything.")
Since leftists believe in the perfectibility of man (through Man,
without any kind of religion), scapegoating is automatically involved.
There is no way around it.
What Rand writes as theory is essentially irrelevant. What matters is
what it her beliefs would create in reality. Socialism in theory
turned into something far different in reality. The same applies to
Objectivism.
Because of human nature, which Rand (like all leftists) completely
misunderstood, Objectivism, once it reached an unknown critical mass
in society, would most probably become genocidal. Even if it didn't,
much more bad than good would come from it.
Rand wished to destroy tradition and replace it with her defintion of
"reason"--which in her case was nothing more than her own whim,
desires and rationalizations. With tradition destroyed, people are
left adrift--this for one accounts for the fanaticism of her
followers, and why Objectivism is not "rational" but a religion. Her
followers were trying to found a new tradition and find a new one
home, one that is opposed to human nature, and as such will never
work.
As is typical of leftists, Rand never understood the most important
property right of all is the right to possess firearms. From this
right all others flow. Without this right, the populace has no way to
defend themselves from the depredations of other people, including the
State. In Randworld, there would be an unarmed "subhuman" populace
helpless against her armed Nietzschean Ubermenschen manning the
government. This is one of the reasons why Whittaker Chambers said
Atlas Shrugged could be described in one sentence: "To a gas
chamber--go!"
Rand's world would be a society of increased narcissistic disorders;
more grandiosity, sadomasochism, manipulation, and scapegoating. More
human sacrifice, of whatever degree or variety.
I suspect there never could be an Objectivist society since pure
Objectivism is so preposterous, so comic book, that it would never get
off of the ground. But if somehow it did, it wouldn't be pretty--it
would be a terrible society, an abomination.
The Greeks noticed millenia ago what very often followed grandiose
Hubris: Nemesis. Destruction. (It's the same saying as the
semi-Bibical "Pride goes before a fall," the correct translation of
"pride" being the same as "hubris.") Jesus' comment about "He who
calls his brother a 'fool'" also appears to indicate how Hubris leads
to scapegoating.
Objectivism does not play into our "self-esteem" but instead our
grandiosity, our narcissism, and our scapegoating. Our hate, our
desire for revenge. Our idolatrous desires.
The opposite of this grandiosity is devaluation, sometimes of one's
own self and certainly of others. If Objectivism can be summed up in
one sentence, it is I'm right and you're wrong, and you're evil
because you're wrong..
I am familiar with at least two suicides influenced by Rand (I suspect
there have been others). The first was Roche, who when her grandiose
world collapsed, had left only devaluation. The second, a woman who
was a "recovering" Objectivist, didn't recover. She had been raised in
a dysfunctional, perfectionist household. Rand's philosophy played
right into that.
When she couldn't live up to Rand's grandiosity, she considered her
problems to be completely her own fault (since Rand taught we are all
grandiose "self-creating" gods) and therefore wasn't quite human (as
Rand also taught). So she killed herself.
"I am nothing and I must be everything," wrote Marx in an
inadvertently revealing quote. This particular ogre didn't kill
himself... although his daughter did. And as did Hitler.
As in the case of Roche, whether or not this woman would have killed
herself minus Rand's influence is something we will never know. But
her influence certainly didn't help in both cases.
Others have noticed this narcissism in Rand. Jeff Walker, in his book,
The Ayn Rand Cult, suggested it but did not expand on it. And Scott
Ryan has written extensively about Rand's attitude toward "those pesky
subhumans."
Athena Ponce, a reviewer at Amazon.com., wrote this about Atlas
Shrugged,
"Please do not let the underlying cruelties of this philosophy go
unnoticed. It is all too clear the people who embrace it already have
a disposition toward conceit combined with low self-esteem; this sad
conglomeration results in seeking the 'proof' of your greatness in the
'non-human' lowliness of others."
This is a one-sentence description of narcissism.
(Actually, Atlas is not that bad of a book if one always keeps in mind
it is a childish, indeed proto-Nazi, fairy-tale, and like all
fairy-tales, should be quickly outgrown. What people generally try to
do is pick and choose what they want from Rand's philosophy. There is
no problem with this, but it does lead to such amusing conflations as
attempting to combine Christianity with militantly atheistic
Objectivism, which would be similiar to a Jewish Nazism.)
Rand wasn't the "cause" of any of these people's problems. For some
she was the excuse, the rationalization, for their behavior. But she
certainly exacerbated things. Martin Buber wrote that we don't become
evil "all at once." Often it's a slow process, a sliding into it. An
easy way to become evil is to slowly and slowly grow more and more
selfish, until only the Self is left, with everyone else reduced to a
"thing" that we project our rage, our hate, and our envy onto.
Rand, like almost every narcissist, was not blessed by feelings of
guilt. Without guilt, there can be no atonement, no reparation, no
apology. It is because of this lack of humaneness that narcissists end
up as they do. And why Rand ended up as she did. She couldn't forgive
others. I suspect she couldn't forgive herself, which is why she had
to cover it with such self-righteousness and grandiosity. If I am
perfect, why should I need to forgive myself for anything I do? Or
forgive others? Or ask forgiveness from others?
Forgiveness is much more important than most people think. When
Nietzsche wrote "God is dead" he didn't mean God had really died: he
meant the educated people of his time had ceased to believe. And with
no one to forgive them they couldn't forgive themselves or others. So
they began to hate themselves and hate others. He essentially
predicted the genocidal horrors of the 20th Century. And, maybe, the
21st. He wasn't much of a philosopher but what he got right, he
certainly got right.
Rand, like Marx and Hitler, had free will. At any time during their
lives they could have stopped, shaken their heads, said, "This is
wrong," and taken a different path. None did. They were weaklings
seduced by the desire to be gods.
As Freud clearly saw: "In the blindest fury of destructiveness, the
satisfaction of an instinct is accompanied by an extraordinarily high
degree of narcissistic enjoyment, owing to its old wishes for
omnipotence." The plot of Atlas, of The Turner Diaries, of The
Communist Manifesto, of Mein Kampf.
In Jungian terms, Rand, Marx and Hitler never faced their Shadows--all
the badness in them--the hate, rage, envy and desire to destroy. They
tried to destroy their Shadows by casting them upon others...and then
trying to destroy them.
Another who did not face his Shadow is the late Howard Stanton Levey
(a.k.a.Anton Szandor LaVey), showman, con man, faux Satanist and
founder of the equally faux Church of Satan. And not at all
surprisingly, he lifted a large part of his silly Satanic Bible from
Galt's speech in Atlas Shrugged. He was also, like Rand, a chronic
liar.
Curiously, both he and Rand had similiar facial traits--arched
eyebrows, a drooping nosetip, and a pointed chin. These features have
traditionally been associated with demons and witches. LaVey's were a
lot worse. He was also, in character, a much worse person than Rand. I
doubt these facial traits are a coincidence.
If the stories in the Gospels can be believed, Jesus faced his Shadow
when Satan tempted him on the mountain by offering him power, glory,
grandiosity. Jesus said no. The aforementioned foursome did not.
Archetypes, Jungian or otherwise, are very prevalent in Rand's work.
John Galt is a Messiah-figure, Galt's Gulch is Noah's Ark (or
Shangra-lai or Brigadoon with genocide); then there's the Hero on a
Quest and the Holy Grail. This combination of mythology and religion
is one of the reasons she is so popular; the other is that her
simple-minded black-or-white philosophy can, like Marxism, be
explained in fifteen minutes (although, like Marxism, it then takes a
century to get rid of.)
The plot of Atlas Shrugged bears a curious resemblance to ancient
Norse mythology. The Norse called their land Midgard, meaning 'kingdom
in the middle'--the center of everything. Inside Midgard was Asgard,
where the gods and goddesses lived. Outside Midgard was Utgard, a land
populated by treacherous giants.
Midgard would be considered the U.S.; Asgard could be considered
Galt's Gulch, and everything outside could be considered Utgard.
Rand also fit the malicious Trickster archetype, as did other
malicious liars, narcissists, psychopaths and con artists such as T.
Lobsang Rampa, Carlos Castaneda, Joseph Smith, L. Ron Hubbard, and
Wallace Fard Muhammad. Leftist politicians usually fit this archetype,
for example Bill Clinton and FDR.
Dostoevsky again, from The House of the Dead": "Tyranny... finally
develops into a disease. The habit can...coarsen the very best man to
the level of beast. Blood and power intoxicate...the return to human
dignity, to repentence, to regeneration, becomes almost impossible."
I think it's now pretty obvious that Rand hated herself. This
self-hate was her devalued self, which was so unbearably painful to
her that she had to cover it up with a fragile grandiose self. As
Restak writes, "The narcissist's grandiosity--the need to maintain an
inflated, unrealistic version of the self--is the flip side of a
deeply entrenched feeling of worthlessness and inferiority."
Rand then projected all her bad feelings onto everyone else, whom she
then, in her writings, scapegoated and annihilated in an attempt to
destroy her painful emotions. This is why Barbara Branden wrote that
Rand had eyes that looked outward, never inward. It would have been
too painful for Rand to see what she really was.
Possibly "eyes that look outward, never inward" were related to Rand's
utter lack of a sense of humor. As Reinhold Niebuhr writes, "Humor is
proof of the capacity of the self to gain a vantage point from which
it is able to look at itself. The sense of humor is thus a by-product
of self- transcendence. People with a sense of humor do not take
themselves very seriously. They are able to 'stand off' from
themselves, see themselves in perspective and recognize the ludicrous
and absurd aspects of their pretensions."
Ridding herself of her self-hate is why Objectivism was a system of
psychotherapy for Rand. One, as I said, that didn't work, as similiar
philosophies have never worked in the past and never will work.
Apparently both Marx and Hitler despised themselves, and created
ideologies as their own particular self-therapies. When societies
adopted their beliefs, genocide was the result.
Rand's philosophy is not completely evil. Some good has come from it.
But I often wonder if as many people have been driven from the
free-market as toward it by her writings.
Becker believes evil arises from a good impulse, the desire to escape
the anxiety related to death. He believes we attempt to conquer death
by participating in a "heroic self-image," by being somebody. Peck
disagrees somewhat, replacing death with the fear of change (which is
a kind of "little death.")
But they agree, along with many philosophers and theologians, that
evil is "twisted good." It is a perversion of good. This is shown
clearly in the myth of Satan, who originally was an angel before he
turned into a cosmic horror. (This might be the most profound myth
there is; it is totally destroyed by a literal interpretation.)
According to Becker, victims must die, in a Dionysian frenzy of
destruction, in ritualized murder, in oceans of spilled blood, for our
glory, our grandiosity--which is a false form of immortality. For
Hitler, it was the Third Reich, which was to last a thousand years.
For Marx, it was his "scientific" system of absolute truth--which
meant, as the truth, is was to last forever. Ditto for Rand. Each
thought, in a sense, what they were doing was to last eternally. Those
who disagreed--"heretics"--had to be disposed of. After all, there can
no Devils in Heaven. So--smite the unrighteous! Slay them all!
Since each was an atheist who did not believe they would survive
death, they instead hoped for a kind of immortality--a false
immortality--in what they thought they had created. Their grandiosity
was supposed to immortalize them in the worlds they hoped to create.
The Utopias they hoped to construct were instead Brave New Worlds, or
even worse--demonic principalities on Earth. The evil within each was
mirrored in the evil without.
Rand was trying to do something good. But it didn't work. Instead
there ended up being a very dark side to her beliefs. Underneath all
the glitter there's no good there. And since the narcissism and
scapegoating start in us as infants, Objectivism, like Nazism and
Marxism, in many ways an infantile philosophy.
The philosopher Robert Pirsig writes that reality can seen in a
Romantic way or a Classic way. The Romantic way (there's that word
"Romantic" again!) means looking at only the surface, the first
emotional impression. "Classic" means to look undereneath, at what it
means. Using his view, the superficial free-market, self-esteem,
"reason"-loving aspect of Rand is the Romantic view. Using Classic
analysis, you see the underlying hate and cruelty. This means her fans
are not operating on reason, but on their feelings.
This also gives another explanation why her writings are so poular
with some people: they appeal to the emotions first, reason second.
And in common with Marx's writings, they are pseudo-scholarly. So what
we have is an ideology that often appeals to our worst emotions and
our reason hardly at all.
Rand can manipulate reality to her heart's content in her imagination
and her writings. Her writings should not be reality. They were
reality in her destructive religious cult, which was a microcosm of
what it would create in any society based on them.
Two closing comments are appropriate. One is from Kuehnelt-Leddihn:
"Madness is very often a combination of cold reason and [imaginative]
fantasy severed from all reality." He wasn't speaking of Rand but his
quote applies to her.
The second is from the writer Norman Spinrad: "...these writers were
writing fiction that moved susceptible readers deep within their
Jungian unconscious structure. They were feeding back murky adolescent
longings for power, strength, peer-group solidarity, and mystic
transcendence, and by doing so were drawing together tribal cults
around their works, creating pocket universes of which they were
little gods and thereby altering reality itself."
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| User: "Jim07D5" |
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| Title: Re: Ayn Rand: Narcissistic Prophet Of Atheism |
21 Jul 2005 11:06:16 AM |
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said:
,<...>
The philosopher Robert Pirsig writes that reality can seen in a
Romantic way or a Classic way. The Romantic way (there's that word
"Romantic" again!) means looking at only the surface, the first
emotional impression. "Classic" means to look undereneath, at what it
means. Using his view, the superficial free-market, self-esteem,
"reason"-loving aspect of Rand is the Romantic view. Using Classic
analysis, you see the underlying hate and cruelty. This means her fans
are not operating on reason, but on their feelings.
<...>
In "Why Dogs Smile And Chimpanzees Cry" researchers report that
emotions (feelings) play a role in *every* higher animal's decision.
According to their research, the so-called Classicist will be just as
motivated by feelings, as the Romantic.
So if a Classicist *denies* his own reliance on feelings, he will
naturally see the feelings that others express, as a *difference*
between that person and himself. But the difference is really only in
his failure to see in himself, what he sees in others.
Pirsig says just that: He says reality *can be seen* either way. The
self-styled Classicist will see it one way; the self-styled Romantic,
another.
Jim07D5
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| User: "Jack" |
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| Title: Re: Ayn Rand: Narcissistic Prophet Of Atheism |
21 Jul 2005 09:49:30 PM |
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"Jim07D5" <Jim07D5@nospam.net> wrote in message
news:lbhvd11vd4u1gfpjt692b8i10vg77ffn7i@4ax.com...
wordsoftruth114@email.com said:
,<...>
The philosopher Robert Pirsig writes that reality can seen in a
Romantic way or a Classic way. The Romantic way (there's that word
"Romantic" again!) means looking at only the surface, the first
emotional impression. "Classic" means to look undereneath, at what it
means. Using his view, the superficial free-market, self-esteem,
"reason"-loving aspect of Rand is the Romantic view. Using Classic
analysis, you see the underlying hate and cruelty. This means her fans
are not operating on reason, but on their feelings.
<...>
In "Why Dogs Smile And Chimpanzees Cry" researchers report that
emotions (feelings) play a role in *every* higher animal's decision.
According to their research, the so-called Classicist will be just as
motivated by feelings, as the Romantic.
So if a Classicist *denies* his own reliance on feelings, he will
naturally see the feelings that others express, as a *difference*
between that person and himself. But the difference is really only in
his failure to see in himself, what he sees in others.
Pirsig says just that: He says reality *can be seen* either way. The
self-styled Classicist will see it one way; the self-styled Romantic,
another.
Jim07D5
Wow a thoughtfull post on the internet. I never saw it coming.
Well done !
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| User: "R. Pierce Butler" |
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| Title: Re: Ayn Rand: Narcissistic Prophet Of Atheism |
20 Jul 2005 08:03:21 PM |
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wrote in news:1121906015.488345.164850
@g44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com:
Ayn Rand: Narcissistic Scapegoating Leftism
"The Sleep of Reason Breeds Monsters"
--Goya
by Bob Wallace
Evil always attempts to hide behind good.
snip over 1000 lines of opinion.
AFAIC, Wallce didn't get any of the many points of the book at all. His
quote from Goya seems self referential to me. Reason has gone to sleep and
the monsters are free to roam and indeed they do in Wallace's article.
rj
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| User: "Richo" |
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| Title: Re: Ayn Rand: Narcissistic Prophet Of Atheism |
20 Jul 2005 09:18:02 PM |
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wrote:
Ayn Rand: Narcissistic Scapegoating Leftism
"The Sleep of Reason Breeds Monsters"
--Goya
by Bob Wallace
<snip>
Some of this criticism is valid.
Many of these criticisms are, ironically enough, applicable to many
cults - from scientology to Roman Catholicism.
Trouble is for you - the atheist hater - is that atheists dont have
leaders or prophets so this attempt to discredit atheism by
discrediting Rand fails patheticaly.
Mark.
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| User: "John Baker" |
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| Title: Re: Ayn Rand: Narcissistic Prophet Of Atheism |
20 Jul 2005 10:51:09 PM |
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On 20 Jul 2005 19:18:02 -0700, "Richo" <m.richardson@utas.edu.au> wrote:
wordsoftruth114@email.com wrote:
Ayn Rand: Narcissistic Scapegoating Leftism
"The Sleep of Reason Breeds Monsters"
--Goya
by Bob Wallace
<snip>
Some of this criticism is valid.
Many of these criticisms are, ironically enough, applicable to many
cults - from scientology to Roman Catholicism.
Trouble is for you - the atheist hater - is that atheists dont have
leaders or prophets so this attempt to discredit atheism by
discrediting Rand fails patheticaly.
Especially since I for one don't know a soul, atheist or not, who actually takes
her seriously.
Mark.
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| User: "Jack" |
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| Title: Re: Ayn Rand: Narcissistic Prophet Of Atheism |
21 Jul 2005 09:45:47 PM |
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"John Baker" <nunya@bizniz.net> wrote in message
news:8s6ud15jbreq7ublqmjfdieq4q3c0atpm0@4ax.com...
On 20 Jul 2005 19:18:02 -0700, "Richo" <m.richardson@utas.edu.au> wrote:
wordsoftruth114@email.com wrote:
Ayn Rand: Narcissistic Scapegoating Leftism
"The Sleep of Reason Breeds Monsters"
--Goya
by Bob Wallace
<snip>
Some of this criticism is valid.
Many of these criticisms are, ironically enough, applicable to many
cults - from scientology to Roman Catholicism.
Trouble is for you - the atheist hater - is that atheists dont have
leaders or prophets so this attempt to discredit atheism by
discrediting Rand fails patheticaly.
Especially since I for one don't know a soul, atheist or not, who actually
takes
her seriously.
You apparently take her seriously enough to post this drivel.
/PS
Soul not included.
.
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| User: "Malcolm" |
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| Title: Re: Ayn Rand: Narcissistic Prophet Of Atheism |
24 Jul 2005 02:51:49 AM |
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"Jack" <jklewis@hotmail.com> wrote
You apparently take her seriously enough to post this drivel.
/PS
Soul not included.
We can't say that she achieved nothing in her life. Has anyone here ever
written or attempted to write a book? Was it better than Atlas Shrugged?
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| User: "Chris Hayes" |
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| Title: Re: Ayn Rand: Narcissistic Prophet Of Atheism |
28 Jul 2005 01:06:39 PM |
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Malcolm wrote:
"Jack" <jklewis@hotmail.com> wrote
You apparently take her seriously enough to post this drivel.
/PS
Soul not included.
We can't say that she achieved nothing in her life. Has anyone here ever
written or attempted to write a book? Was it better than Atlas Shrugged?
I didn't think Atlas Shrugged was all that good in the first place
(gave up after 150 pages). I won't knock it however, since obviously a
lot of people found something worthwhile reading it.
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| User: "Terry Cross" |
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| Title: Re: Ayn Rand: Narcissistic Prophet Of Atheism |
28 Jul 2005 01:20:48 PM |
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Chris Hayes wrote:
Malcolm wrote:
"Jack" <jklewis@hotmail.com> wrote
You apparently take her seriously enough to post this drivel.
/PS
Soul not included.
We can't say that she achieved nothing in her life. Has anyone here ever
written or attempted to write a book? Was it better than Atlas Shrugged?
I didn't think Atlas Shrugged was all that good in the first place
(gave up after 150 pages). I won't knock it however, since obviously a
lot of people found something worthwhile reading it.
Yes, but were they worthwhile people?
Popularity has endorsed pulp romance fiction. daytime soap opera, Star
Wars, Seinfeld, and Paris Hilton. Is Ayn Rand as "worthwhile" as all
of those?
TCross
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| User: "Chris Hayes" |
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| Title: Re: Ayn Rand: Narcissistic Prophet Of Atheism |
28 Jul 2005 01:29:26 PM |
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Terry Cross wrote:
Chris Hayes wrote:
Malcolm wrote:
"Jack" <jklewis@hotmail.com> wrote
You apparently take her seriously enough to post this drivel.
/PS
Soul not included.
We can't say that she achieved nothing in her life. Has anyone here ever
written or attempted to write a book? Was it better than Atlas Shrugged?
I didn't think Atlas Shrugged was all that good in the first place
(gave up after 150 pages). I won't knock it however, since obviously a
lot of people found something worthwhile reading it.
Yes, but were they worthwhile people?
That's a highly subjective question to answer. If I was to say they're
not "worthwile", I'd be quite pompous.
Popularity has endorsed pulp romance fiction. daytime soap opera, Star
Wars, Seinfeld, and Paris Hilton. Is Ayn Rand as "worthwhile" as all
of those?
To some, she is. The problem with Rand is that many began to treat
_Atlas Shrugged_ as the pinnacle of literary achievement. There are
people who've read it 50-60 times, with some couples actually having
passages from it being read at their weddings. Her writings did
inspire some people to question the basic underpinnings of "society",
but in many respects her "libertarian" philosophy became the exact
*opposite* of libertarianism. Here's an article by Murray Rothbard on
how she became a cult leader:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/rothbard23.html
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| User: "Jack" |
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| Title: Re: Ayn Rand: Narcissistic Prophet Of Atheism |
01 Aug 2005 03:48:35 PM |
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"Chris Hayes" <hayes12@fadmail.com> wrote in message
news:1122575366.003988.44460@g43g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
Terry Cross wrote:
Chris Hayes wrote:
Ma | | | | | | | | |
