Atlas Update: Web-searches suddenly hit here on May 21, 2011 -- Why?
Here’s a challenge for Randians.
What Marx provided the Leftists, Rand provided the Statists: a false flag behind which they hide their true intentions from the gullible.
I say this because members of both camps contain power lusters and misanthropes. Whatever else they have done, and will do yet, to achieve their goals, their results prove to be devastatingly misanthropic. (Can we guess which element is truly in charge?)
Key Observations:
Consider that Rand’s pièce de résistance was titled for a bloodless titan.
Consider that she kills, without any sense of loss, the two most identifiable and likeable humans in her novel.
- Taggert’s wife Cheryl1 commits suicide out of frustration and despair.
- Eddie Willers is torn apart by the mob while doing his job beyond the call of duty (like the men we remember today*). He did it in habitual defense of the property of Rand’s “heroine” who had herself abandoned the field without telling him, her long-time loyal friend. Dagny (Rand?) displayed no gratitude.
Key Cautionary:
What individuals — who are wary of ideologies but are disorganized — need to see is that
the Marxists and the Statists are two ends of the same vise, with real humans in the middle. That is the struggle going on in Atlas Shrugged and that we are witnessing today, with we in the middle being set up to cut each other's throats
Initially I very much liked Atlas Shrugged. It seemed a welcome antithesis to the Leftism that was whirling for the 40-50 years on either side of its publication.
Know men by their deeds not their words:
So what first alerted me to the deceitful side of Rand? The actions and words of her most lauded acolyte, Alan Greenspan.
When Greenspan said “who in their right mind would buy a 4.5% fixed mortgage when a 3.75% variable is available?” I knew he either was intentionally deceitful, or someone had something terrible they used — and he succumbed — to get Greenspan to abandon those who trusted him. Like Rand did Willers.
A Unique Observation?
I’d like to know: Am I the first person you have read to make this observation about Rand? I’ve not seen it written elsewhere.
Could it be because those on the Left, who are more inclined to criticize her, would never make such a comparison? And certainly not from the libertarians who shun from their ranks any who did not conform to a certain level of coldbloodedness. Nor from the corporatists (often mistakenly accepted as conservatives) who we know seek legislation that gives advantages to themselves and disadvantages, cripples or demolishes their competitors.
The Challenge:
On this day of remembrance, where acolytes and apologists of Rand are among those who question the wisdom of willing self sacrifice, I’d like to hear a defense of her attitude to the common man.
Not the “man” she paints as a defiant titan like Galt or Reardon or Rourke, and of independent means, but a common man who is a success in his own right, in the decent things he does and the loyalties he demonstrates — like Willers.
Conclude with Safety in Mind:
For the rest of you, this day for remembrance of fallen heroes may be of aid when you decide it is time to jump out from between the jaws of the tyrants’ vise.
Oh, and let me be clear:
And I'm not saying that providing cover for the Statists was Rand's intention starting out. It's simply that her philosophy didn't consider all the ways in which schemers could use her thesis. And surely her advancement, especially in Hollywood, had something to do with her brilliance being seen as useful by the power seekers. As her cult of personality grew, surely she came to love her adulation. She may have chosen to look the other way as the Statists took advantage. She was too bright not to have noticed.
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*Note, the bulk of this was written on Memorial Day and referenced
here and published
here. But it deserved a place at this site because I'm pretty sure Ayn Rand was no fan of Blaise Pascal. He'd have seen her as just another casuist who lost her moral underpinning.
1It surely seems that
in this crowd of Objectivists, none see what I am proposing. I suspect it is because of their reverence for Rand. Are they misled or have they willfully permitted themselves to be misled?
[Note: the red text is to remind PF that he should endeavor to explore a subject further]
Wretchard, the Judeo-Christian moral ethic carried this along generation to generation. The “Progressives,” have long worked to eradicate its continuance a various ways.
How do I know my assertion is true?
There is our experience as we lived it. We have witnessed the lengths the “Progressives” have gone to to allow any small grievance be amplified by court order to suppress the continued mention of anything related to God and the institutions that were formed in His name. That concept of the Creator, even flying in the face of horrid misapplications, has influenced many a man to comprehend the natural law of the universe with an eye towards justice — not simply personal advantage.
And there is the evidence provided us by C.S. Lewis in 1943. He saw what the “Progressives” were up to and forewarned where they were taking us. I summarize “Men Without Chests”
And we living in the postmodern world are its product, although the Left and its propaganda arms constantly denies there is anything wrong with the product — except for those [insert ad hominem here] who disagree with it.
And that suits those who hunger for power over us. They aim to be the supermen who remain — after what we might recognize as men have been abolished.
An essential reason to think back of our heroes on Memorial Day — in contradistinction to Obama dissing it — is to think of why they gave up their futures for ours.
In that thought nurtures the seed to carry on the Golden Rule. “Do unto to others what thou would have done unto thee” is anathema to those who wish to rule all the world. “Hah, what can you puny people do to me, the Great One? Morals are for lesser men.”
Those better “puny” men that we honor today wound up to beating back the nasty things that men can do as they claim to pursue, both then and today, their vision of Utopia for all.
The Left continues to try to impress the gullible that man is perfectible, and is thus naturally good. It’s a nice wish, but it is a lie. The Left in the service of Statism needs us to forget, forget. FORGET!
Mankind must from time to time arise to beat back tyranny, sometimes against great odds, and these heroes showed us how it can be done.
So we do not forget. Yes, it is in their honor and it is for their sacrifices. It is our duty.
It imbues in us an understanding that, in Wretchard's words, our “individual existence and well-being is somehow inseparable from that of the group.” [emphasis added]