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God I wish that were me

Ayn Rand was a Russian born writer and philosopher. Her most well known works include The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, the latter considered by many to be the most important political book of the 20th century.

Ayn Rand escaped from Russia to the United States of America with her family during the early years of the Bolshevik Revolution. Her family, Middle Class business owners, would most likely have seen their assets seized by the new government. This event influenced Ayn Rand for the rest of her life, informing her uncompromising rejection of and opposition to communism and all forms of Leftism.

Allegedly a gifted student, Ayn Rand wasted little of her aulthood before putting pen to paper, creating plays, novels, and other writings. Her first major play, We Are the Living, was inspired by her escape from the Bolsheviks. It became a major hit in the US, eventually seeing a Broadway release during the late 40′s.

The 50′s were unquestionably Ayn Rand’s golden years. She wrote and published her Magnum Opus, Atlas Shrugged, during this decade. She described the book as a “treatise on the role of man’s mind in the Universe.” At around this time as well, her influence in American Right Wing politics solidified. Her new philosophy, Objectivism, also grew in popularity and influence at around this time as well.

Ayn Rand’s philosophy is described this way: The individual is the most important thing in the Universe. To Ayn Rand, mankind’s most important mission in life is to reach their full potential; everything that serves as an obstacle to this end is bad and must be removed.

Now that I’m done being dry about Ayn Rand…

The major problem with Rand’s philosophy is that it mercilessly falls apart when you analyze it bit by bit dispassionately. Rand’s ENTIRE work is based on pushing her philosophy into the world; not to debate it, not to suggest it, but to RAM IT DOWN YOUR THROAT before you even have the chance to process wtf is going on.

Take The Fountainhead, for example. On its surface, it’s the story of one man who’s standing tall against a world that wants to censor his creative genius. But on a much deeper level, it’s about a douchenozzle who INSISTS that the world cater to him. He views his own talents as flawless, and absolutely refuses to budge so much as an inch in regards to his demands. Problem is that the guy is an architect; he gets paid by other people to design a building some OTHER third party is going to build. Architects NEED to be open to changes that their customers want, because GUESS WHAT? The customer is always right!

The truth of the matter is that the architect is just ONE in a TEAM needed to make building, but Howard Roark acts like he knows everything. It doesn’t matter if his designs are practical; nobody wants to PAY for them. The Free Market spoke, and it said that Roark’s designs are no good. At first this attitude loses him his job, but at the end of the book, he’s rewarded for it.

Roark commits an act of arson, and the book rewards him for it. He also commits a rape, and the book REWARDS HIM FOR IT! The FUCK? This is a major problem with Rand: she’s so damn biased towards her heroes that she bends the rules specifically for them. She’s like a 14 year old fanfic writer who specializes in Mary Sues! Oh, but wait till I tell you bout Atlas Shrugged.

Atlas Shrugged is the story of one guy who really, REALLY didn’t like the fact that he couldn’t get super duper rich out of his inventions, so he decided to say “fuck it” and live in a tiny ranch in the middle of the sticks. He then took a whole bunch of like minded peeps who ALSO got sick of not being allowed to get super duper rich out of exploiting workers and got them to join him.

Here’s the skinny: the novel doesn’t work because it relies on a Capitalist view of socialism. The novel cannot grasp just how socialist states actually function, or WHY big companies tend to get nationalized. This is Rand’s anti-communist fervor rearing its ugly head.

Wanna know WHY communism continues to be a thing? Because capitalism keeps exploiting people. There’s always going to be this great divide between the haves and have-nots under capitalism; hell, capitalism can’t exist without it! One part of the novel mentions Mexico nationalizing copper mines as if it were a bad thing. A quick look into Mexico’s history would show you WHY it would actually be a GREAT thing instead.

The major problem with Rand’s books, and her entire philosphy in general, is that it celebrates what she calls “rational, ethical egoism.” But egoism can neither be rational NOR ethical. Consider the following situation: There is one chocolate bar. You want it, but so does your baby brother. What do you do? The common response would be to share it; the altruistic response would be to let your baby brother have a bigger piece than you, if not the whole bar. Ayn Rand would convince you to eat the whole thing yourself.

Ayn Rand defended capitalism because she was an egoistic person. Her ENTIRE philosophy was designed to help justify her desire to be rich, powerful, and to be above others. Her entire philosophy is used specifically to justify being rich!

That’s the real reason why she hated communism so much; because she saw it as an obstacle to getting wealthy. Ayn Rand came from a world that could not exist if they acknowledged how the bourgeois were trampling on the rights of the Proletariat just by existing. Everything, from her education, to her very way of life, could not be possible without some level of exploiting workers. This is most disgustingly clear in Atlas Shrugged; people can’t get rich off of exploiting workers, so they leave the world to die. She could not possibly fathom a world where the common folk could band together and eke out a good living; in fact, her entire philosophy considers this type of world impossible!

This is why Ayn Rand’s philosophy DOES NOT WORK. People cooperate together to make things. It takes CONSTRUCTION WORKERS WHO WORK TOGETHER to make a building! The architect gives out the blueprint. Ayn Rand might argue that without the blueprint the workers have no direction, but without the worker, the blueprint is just a picture on paper. This is the truth of the world: people MUST work together, and we can not afford to be egoistic if we want society to function.

Anyway, that’s Ayn Rand.

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