Ayn, Everywhere

Just in case you missed it, Ayn Rand is everywhere.

(HT Tyler Cowan)

Ayn Ascendant, Again

Ayn Rand, who never really went away, is having a landmark year in 2009. Sales of Atlas Shrugged have surged since the financial crisis. Some members of the Right, few of whom are actually Objectivists, have coined the term "Going Galt," a reference to the hero of the novel, as a shorthand for opposition to the leftward shift the Obama administration is taking the country. A film adaptation of Atlas Shrugged, long stuck in development hell, seems poised to become a television miniseries. And now, two major biographies of Rand, Jennifer Burns' Goddess of the Market and Anne Heller's Ayn Rand and the World She Made, have been published in the last three weeks. (See my review of Goddess of the Market here.)

This confluence of events has resulted in a flurry of articles and reviews by major publications like Time, Newsweek, and The New Republic. Burns recently spoke about Rand on The Daily Show (see below). The New York Times alone has devoted two reviews of these bios in a week (one by Janet Maslin, and a forthcoming front-page review in this Sunday's Book Review). Most of the reviews, while praising the quality of the bios, have been highly critical of Rand herself. Most notably, Jonathan Chait's review of the books for TNR was merely a springboard for a sneering diatribe against Rand. (It seemed unclear that he had ever read Rand's, or Burns' and Heller's, books.)

Is this recent resurgence of Rand good news for fans like me? A couple of weeks ago I had a heated discussion on this very topic, with a friend of mine who is also an Objectivist. He argued that the bios, and the media attention surrounding them, only further obfuscate Rand's ideas. He makes a good point. Burns and Heller, who have become admirers of Rand, misconstrue many of her ideas, and play up her tumultuous personal life. The reviews of their books cull them for their negative bits, and largely ignore the praise the authors have for Rand.

[A brief aside on this last point: Earlier today, I attended a discussion on Rand, featuring Jennifer Burns and Anne Heller, at the Cato Institute. Before the start of the talk, the aforementioned NYT Book Review piece was distributed to the audience. One of the review's many incorrect assertions popped out at me (and at a fellow audience member). The reviewer, Adam Kirsch, describes how Rand accepted a 7 cent-per-copy decrease in royalties, to ensure Galt's climatic 60-page philosophical speech in Atlas Shrugged remained completely intact:

That she agreed is a sign of the great contradiction that haunts her writing and especially her life. [...]

[W]hile Rand took to wearing a dollar-sign pin to advertise her love for capitalism, Heller makes clear that the author had no real affection for dollars themselves. Giving up her royalties to preserve her vision is something no genuine capitalist, and few popular novelists, would have done. It is the act of an intellectual, of someone who believes that ideas matter more than lucre.

The final question of the night was about this assertion. The audience member who also took umbrage asked Heller what she thought of it. How could the reviewer misunderstand Rand's ideas so? "Few critics understand Ayn Rand," she replied, to great applause. "It was an investment -- and it paid off." Indeed.]

I think this recent attention, however negatively skewed, is still a very good thing. Rand has been receiving negative reviews since the publication of her first novel. This has never affected her popularity, with some thanks to a few notable champions, but mostly due to popular word of mouth recommendations. But these books bring a serious study of Rand and her ideas, one thing Rand has always lacked. And, I know this will sound like apostasy to my fellow Objectivists, I think their mixed evaluation of Rand actually encourages further academic study. These books could never be described as fawning hagiographies by devotees. Nevertheless, they take Rand -- her ideas, her art, and her impact -- seriously. How can this be seen as a bad thing?

For Objectivism to have a real impact on the culture, it has to studied impartially. Inroads have already been made. But, I don't know how any fan could argue that ignoring Ayn Rand is better than giving her more attention, however mixed that attention is.

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*Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right* Review

To this day, Ayn Rand elicits many strong reactions, few of which are evenhanded. Her fans (I count myself as one) adore her; her enemies dismiss her, at best, or savage her, at worst. While there are exceptions that prove the rule, most who know enough to have an opinion come down on either side. Ayn Rand remains the polarizing intellectual figure of the last half-century.

Her ideas have been canonized, co-opted, obfuscated, openly misunderstood, and caricatured by friends and foes alike. Biographies of Rand have either been hagiographies or outright smear-pieces. Only in the last fifteen years have serious, though marginal, academic publications begun to study Rand's ideas. But now two major biographies, Anne Heller's Ayn Rand and the World She Made, and Jennifer Burns' Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right, have arrived to set the intellectual record straight and reassess Ayn Rand as serious thinker, free from the shackles of her admirers and detractors.

(I have only read Burns' work, since Heller's has not yet been released. A review of that book will follow.)

I'm happy to report that Goddess of the Market is an excellent intellectual biography of Ayn Rand. Burns briskly retells Rand's life, from her childhood in Soviet Russia, to her early adult life in Hollywood, her rise as a novelist and philosopher, and her place within "libertarian" thought today. (Rand never aligned herself with the libertarian movement. In fact, she referred to them as "hippies of the right." Still, the libertarian movement largely credits Rand as one of its founders.)

Burns spent eight years researching the book, and had unprecedented access to the Ayn Rand Archives (which Heller did not). And it shows. While she has an unfortunate penchant for taking Rand's ideas out of context, she still exhibits a impressive understanding of Objectivist thought. However, concerning Rand's personal life (which I think has little bearing on the validity of her philosophy), Burns sides with Rand's detractors more often than not, without explanation. This is the book's greatest flaw, especially since it is the first to have access to such a wide breadth of primary sources.

The highlight of Goddess of the Market is its description of Rand's middle-years, the time between the writing of The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. This era found Rand a burgeoning political activist (first for Wendell Willkie, and later for Barry Goldwater), who was interacting with libertarian luminaries like Isabel Paterson, Rose Wilder Lane, Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich Hayek, and Milton Friedman. Here Burns shows how they aided Rand in defining her philosophy, either by providing the perspective that Rand lacked (Paterson and Mises), or by providing touchstones for disagreement (Hayek and Friedman).

The latter half of the book focuses on Rand's post-Atlas Shrugged life, with emphasis on her doomed (professional and personal) relationship with Nathanial Branden. While this story has been told before, of particular interest is Burns' description of Rand's increasing influence on the ideas of the political right, which was both welcomed and harshly rejected. Her most important opponent was William F. Buckley, whose National Review provided the most scathing criticisms of Rand, more so than anyone on the Left. (Rand's current vogue among conservatives like Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck is tenuous and superficial; they largely focus on a narrow understanding of some of her political philosophy, and simply ignore the bulk of her ideas, which are at odds with theirs.)

Though Rand's blithe disregard for her enemies fueled their vitriol, her ideas were sure to inflame both sides of the political spectrum on their own. She not only advocated capitalism, but bluntly stated that it was the only moral political system, something even the Right was hesitant to do. She was also an outspoken atheist, who abhorred the Right's increasing religiosity (this was the source of Buckley's dislike). And both sides bristled at Rand's idea that altruism is evil and selfishness is good.

To the chagrin of literary critics, college professors, and political commentators, Rand remains immensely popular. Her fame has only increased since her death in 1982. Indeed, her continued relevance could be described as populist, at least in the cultural sense. Her novels continue to thrive on word of mouth recommendations, an amazing feat for books that are at least 50 years old.

Rand's critics focus on her negativity, which was undoubtedly robust. She loathed most of modern culture, and at times was pessimistic about the future. But they miss what her fans embrace about Rand: her celebration of the individual, her fierce advocacy of freedom, her belief that the rational human mind is man's greatest asset.

Burns' book doesn't seek to bridge the differences between Ayn Rand's fans and enemies. Instead, it provides an intelligent assessment of her place within 20th century thought. Something she has been denied, until now.