Clearly, Ms. Young is writing to her audience and I'm sure they appreciate her left-wing argument. I've always contended that extremists on either side of the argument are not the truth but are a great conduit to the truth. Somewhere between the two extremes lies the truth. I think this article helps elucidate the truth quite well for any reader who understands Ms. Rand's work.
Ayn Rand, the controversial Russian-born American writer, would have turned 105 years old on February 2. This anniversary takes place amidst a Rand mini-revival, sparked by the Obama Administrations push to expand government and resulting fears of socialism on the march. There has been a spike in sales of Rand's books, particularly Atlas Shrugged, the 1957 novel depicting a quasi-totalitarian future America in which the best, the brightest and the most productive go on strike in protest.
Some bloggers have bandied about the idea of such a strike under Obama going Galt, after John Galt, the leader of the revolt in the novel. Rand has recently appeared on the cover of Reason, the libertarian monthly (where I am a contributing editor) and of GQ where she was the target of a profane, vitriolic rant.
Who is Ayn Rand, and what does her renewed popularity mean? A refugee from Soviet Russia who fled Communist dictatorship in the 1920s, Rand called herself a radical for capitalism rather than a conservative. Her vision, articulated in several novels and later in nonfiction essays as the philosophy of Objectivism, earned her a sometimes cult-like following in her lifetime and beyond it.
More at RealClearPolitics via Instapundit.
Cross-posted at WOMBAT's Blog
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2 comments:
I suppose it's a good thing that there's a waxing interest in Rand of late, but every time I hear some tea-partier type threatening to "go Galt," I equate it to a peace activist's threat to go on a six-hour hunger strike.
The overwhelming majority of Rand's work was non-fiction, some of it pretty philosophical (and very dry) in content. Her four (I think) purely fiction books are the only ones ever debated - and then it's only "Atlas Shrugged" or "The Fountainhead" that are mentioned. To get a real sense of what she was about, I'd recommend either "Anthem" (fiction) or "Capitalism - The Unknown Ideal" (non-fiction).
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