-Bruce E. Levine
__________________
Rand said, “Capitalism and altruism are incompatible….The choice is
clear-cut: either a new morality of rational self-interest, with its
consequences of freedom, justice, progress and man’s happiness on
earth—or the primordial morality of altruism, with its consequences of
slavery, brute force, stagnant terror and sacrificial furnaces.”
For
many young people, hearing that it is “moral” to care only about oneself
can be intoxicating, and some get addicted to this idea for life.
I have known several people, professionally and socially, whose lives
have been changed by those close to them who became infatuated with Ayn
Rand.
To wow her young admirers, Rand would often tell a story
of how a smart-aleck book salesman had once challenged her to explain
her philosophy while standing on one leg. She replied:
“Metaphysics—objective reality.
Epistemology—reason.
Ethics—self-interest.
Politics—capitalism.”
How did that philosophy capture young minds?
(1)Metaphysics—objective reality.
Rand offered a narcotic for confused young people: complete certainty
and a relief from their anxiety. Rand believed that an “objective
reality” existed, and she knew exactly what that objective reality was.
It included skyscrapers, industries, railroads, and ideas—at least her
ideas. Rand’s objective reality did not include anxiety or sadness. Nor
did it include much humor, at least the kind where one pokes fun at
oneself. Rand assured her Collective that objective reality did not
include Beethoven’s, Rembrandt’s, and Shakespeare’s realities—they were
too gloomy and too tragic, basically buzzkillers. Rand preferred Mickey
Spillane and, towards the end of her life, “Charlie’s Angels.”
(2)Epistemology—reason.
Rand’s kind of reason was a “cool-tool” to control the universe. Rand
demonized Plato, and her youthful Collective members were taught to
despise him. If Rand really believed that the Socratic Method described
by Plato of discovering accurate definitions and clear thinking did not
qualify as “reason,” why then did she regularly attempt it with her
Collective? Also oddly, while Rand mocked dark moods and despair, her
“reasoning” directed that Collective members should admire Dostoyevsky,
whose novels are filled with dark moods and despair. A demagogue, in
addition to hypnotic glibness, must also be intellectually inconsistent,
sometimes boldly so. This eliminates challenges to authority by weeding
out clear-thinking young people from the flock.
(3)Ethics—self-interest.
For Rand, all altruists were manipulators. What could be more seductive
to kids who discerned the motives of martyr parents, Christian
missionaries and U.S. foreign aiders? Her champions, Nathaniel Branden
still among them, feel that Rand’s view of “self-interest” has been
horribly misrepresented. For them, self-interest is her hero architect
Howard Roark turning down a commission because he couldn’t do it exactly
his way. Some of Rand’s novel heroes did have integrity, however, for
Rand there is no struggle to discover the distinction between true
integrity and childish vanity. Rand’s integrity was her vanity, and it
consisted of getting as much money and control as possible, copulating
with whomever she wanted regardless of who would get hurt, and her
always being right. To equate one’s selfishness, vanity, and egotism
with one’s integrity liberates young people from the struggle to
distinguish integrity from selfishness, vanity, and egotism.
(4)Politics—capitalism.
While Rand often disparaged Soviet totalitarian collectivism, she had
little to say about corporate totalitarian collectivism, as she
conveniently neglected the reality that giant U.S. corporations, like
the Soviet Union, do not exactly celebrate individualism, freedom, or
courage. Rand was clever and hypocritical enough to know that you don’t
get rich in the United States talking about compliance and conformity
within corporate America. Rather, Rand gave lectures titled: “America’s
Persecuted Minority: Big Business.” So, young careerist corporatists
could embrace Rand’s self-styled “radical capitalism” and feel radical —
radical without risk.
Rand’s Legacy
In recent years, we have
entered a phase where it is apparently okay for major political figures
to publicly embrace Rand despite her contempt for Christianity. In
contrast, during Ayn Rand’s life, her philosophy that celebrated
self-interest was a private pleasure for the 1 percent but she was a
public embarrassment for them. They used her books to congratulate
themselves on the morality of their selfishness, but they publicly
steered clear of Rand because of her views on religion and God. Rand,
for example, had stated on national television, “I am against God. I
don’t approve of religion. It is a sign of a psychological weakness. I
regard it as an evil.”
Actually, again inconsistent, Rand did have a God. It was herself. She said:
I am done with the monster of “we,” the word of serfdom, of plunder, of
misery, falsehood and shame. And now I see the face of god, and I raise
this god over the earth, this god whom men have sought since men came
into being, this god who will grant them joy and peace and pride. This
god, this one word: “I.”
While Harriet Beecher Stowe shamed
Americans about the United States’ dehumanization of African Americans
and slavery, Ayn Rand removed Americans’ guilt for being selfish and
uncaring about anyone except themselves. Not only did Rand make it
“moral” for the wealthy not to pay their fair share of taxes, she
“liberated” millions of other Americans from caring about the suffering
of others, even the suffering of their own children.
The good
news is that I’ve seen ex-Rand fans grasp the damage that Rand’s
philosophy has done to their lives and to then exorcize it from their
psyche. Can the United States as a nation do the same thing?
(Bruce E. Levine is a practicing clinical psychologist. His latest book
is Get Up, Stand Up: Uniting Populists, Energizing the Defeated, and
Battling the Corporate Elite.)
