What would you tell to a teenage cousin about Ayn Rand?

[Taverner]

I have a cousin who lives in Boulder. She just turned 16 and is totally into Ayn Rand. Fountainhead is her favorite book, and she is totally sold on objectivism.

Now her parents are both lefties like all of us. Dad (my cousin-cousin) is a professional jazz musician, and her mom is a professional healer.

Will she grow out of this? She's incredibly smart and would understand reason (in fact that's one of her favorite quotes, "reason over religion" - something I can't totally disagree with...) and I seem to remember lots of my pre-goth teenage friends in high school really getting into Rand, and then later getting out of it.

[MikeG]

1. Isn't it strange how all the liberals in her books are ugly?

[Squeech]

8. No, there are no liberals in her books

There are caricatures.

Full disclosure: when I was 16 years old, I too thought the Rand ethos was compelling. Rand did correctly identify a certain strain of-- I'm not sure what to call it, "evil" is too strong, but bad faith. Her preferred solution of egoism, however, is incomplete at best. Why I gave up on objectivism is that I do now believe that there is such a thing as the commons (e.g. the environment), a notion Randism explicitly rejects.

One thing I would love to ask a present day devotee is, which Rand character does Dubya more closely resemble: John Galt (the super-smart hero) or Jim Taggart (the wastrel heir who becomes the figurehead boss of the railroad)? Now, are you sure Republicans really exemplify objectivist ideas?

[rwenos]

14. Dubya is Clearly

Either Peter Keating from "The Fountainhead," or Jim Taggart from "Atlas Shrugged." Good call on your part.

[Fenris]

2. Most kids grow out of Rand once they take a freshman philosophy course.

[eyesroll]

3. Tell her to write the essay and win the scholarship.

:shrug:

[AverageJoe]

4. Tell her that it's great that she's reading the books

If you tell her that Rand is a dangerous loon, you'll just tick your cousin off. My guess is she'll grow out of it, but be better off just from having read Rand and expanded her horizons.

Hell, I read Anthem years ago and it didn't turn me into a right winger.

[flamingyouth]

5. If she's 16 it's probably just a phase

I read Ayn Rand at that age too.

[Parche]

6. who

is ayn rand.....never heard of her

[Gothic Sponge]

11. She's a porn star

:crazy:

[Callissto]

7. The Ayn Rand Phase

It sounds trite, but I think it's a right of passage for most well-read youngsters. When she is older, I'd recommend that she read a few biographies of Ayn, most notably the one by Barbara Bradford. It will shatter the mythology of the woman and expose her for the raving hypocrite she was.

[LongTomH]

13. Ayn Rand would've made a perfect James Bond villianess......

.....complete with long cigarette holder. Everyone I've read, who actually met her described her as vain, arrogant, selfish, and cruel, all the qualities that make for a good (bad!) villian(ess)!

[rwenos]

9. Good Novelist; Lousy Political Philosopher

I went through a period in college when I read just about all of Ayn Rand's books. She was a "White Russian" you know -- escaped with her family from Moscow before the 1918 Revolution.

I think what you tell your young reader is that Ayn Rand writes wonderful, powerful novels, with great characterizations. But her politics and philosphy are very superficial. She bastardizes Aristotle in "The Fountainhead," and perverts the Law of Non-Contradiction. But Howard Roark, and especially Dominique, are chilling characters, and Peter Keating is one of the best corporate whores in American literature.

If she reads "Atlas Shrugged," you can also point to the characterizations as finely-wrought. Dagny Taggart is the star of the story.

But the philosophy is superficial, inaccurately characterizes Aristotle, and is ultimately corporatist, elitist and hateful.

On the other hand, I was successful in deconstructing Ayn Rand with chicks. Very successful. (Sigh.)

[tigereye]

30. that's how you lured them into your atelier?

;) nowadays I think it is talk of Foucault and Derrida ( who recently died) that gets the job of seduction through philosophy done.

[amber dog democrat]

10. I would say Ayn was a very confused and unhappy person

who had a lot of axed to grind, but she wrote well. Just think of her works as another Bizarro world. Have skepticism about ANYthing you read. I have mellowed. I used to think she was lying , but .... oh well, Who is John Galt /

[TrogL]

12. Ayn Rand appeals to simplistic thinking

Roarke and other "ideal" characters do not deal well with grey issues. It's their way or the highway. He burns down an apartment building because somebody changes his design. Not good.

If it gets to be a problem, there's some "recovering from Objectivism" websites that a Google could turn up.

[Phillycat]

15. She'll grow out of it when she hits college.

I did.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

16. Four words: unattainable utopia, like Communism.

Assumes people are nice. They ain't.

[Zuni]

24. My opinion exactly!

Ayn Rand style Capitalism is exactly like Marxism in the respect that they both only work in theory.

[regularguy]

17. Tell her about Rand's intense hatred of Jazz.

I went though a teenage Rand/Objectivist phase. Fountainhead was a nice novel for me at the time, but that steaming pile of verbal refuse called "Atlas Shrugged" will cure her (as it did me).

[jonnyblitz]

18. her following is cultlike. n/t

[pschoeb]

19. Try this Ayn Rand qoute

"Rape is an integral and necessary expression of human nature. Sexual assaults have been present in every society since the dawn of time. It is the drive of man to reproduce, to compete successfully for advantage on the battlefield of life and evolution. In fact, it is this very competition to reproduce that motivates man to do anything productive and worthwhile in the first place. It is this competition that motivates man to aspire to greatness. Can you imagine men striving for greatness were they not motivated by their drive to reproduce by any means? Of course not, because the drive to reproduce is at the very core of mankind's essence! As long as we disregard silly 'god' superstitions and recognize that a man is ultimately responsible to and for himself, we therefore recognize that any measures that attempt to stifle this natural and inherent drive to reproduce by any means are inherently wrong. To stifle sexual assaults is the perverse anti-human dream of the superstitious or a bloated priestly class, or the self-promoted intelligentsia, which of course is both of these at the same time. In fact, no human society has successfully eliminated rape, despite myriad measures designed to curb sexual assaults. If man were only truly free to pursue this integral part of his nature we would walk as the masters of the Earth that we are!"

[Phillycat]

22. There you go. Beautiful.

Shows what a complete fucking nutjob that one was, without anyone else having to say a word.

[tigereye]

32. yes

it is her complete and utter inability to see the horror and lack of ethics attached to her words that makes her so compelling to the naive and uninformed. ( I went through the phase, too.) Her writing attracts the lust of the eye.

actually it sounds like the current admin.

[SemiCharmedQuark]

29. Yep...the rape scene between Roark and Dominique says it all

[Lars39]

20. She needs to know the Greenspan/Rand connection

and the consequences that she'll be living with for a looong time. Throw some Strauss in there, too.

[Merrick]

21. I recall reading in a bio of Karl Rove -

that he noted Rand as a having a heavy influence on his POV.

uh-oh.

[amazona]

23. basically I would tell her what my mom told me...

...which is that I trust her to see through the logical fallacies and make up her own mind. There is just not enough "meat" to this over-simplified philosophy and, in time, an intelligent person will become dissatisfied by the mis-match between theory and the world. So, since she's 16, I'd just let her get some seasoning without offering too much in the way of my personal comments.


As it is rude to point out to a young person that she is young, if she presses for an extended discussion, at most I might (and have) commented that once you have worked for a large corporation and/or owned your own business (I've done both), you see how silly it is to believe that people know and act in their best interests when left alone by government. That five percent of people who are evil, sociopathic, or just plain stupid **** it up for everyone. This is why we need a referee -- a gov't and a court system. Without a ref, the cheaters get to the top -- which stinks when you're an intelligent person who expected to get there by merit. See under the situation in "free market" Russia.

But I most likely would say less, rather than more, unless she was really hitting me with serious questions.

Now, if she is just looking for a fight, as some of the more obnoxious libertarians certainly do, I'd blow her off until she learns more manners. Chanting slogans is not a mark of intelligence, and she'll figure that out soon enough if she really is bright and expects to make her way in the world.

[dpbrown]

25. Objectivism is checkmated by Greed

Pure objectivism requires that people work to their full potential, then barter with others doing the same to create the objectivist Eden.

Republicans have hijacked "personal responsibility" to mean obtaining a short-term benefit by any means available, including the destruction of the system supporting barter.

The discordance between the two is that the rich aristocrats claiming to be the heirs to objectivism have perfected only the art of subterfuge to "persuade" those whom they would control of their ability. Since their full potential is a lie, it's the negative of objectivism.

Or not.

[liontamer]

26. I read (and liked) ayn rand

that doesn't mean she's lost forever. tell her that ayn rand has an interesting point of view, and explain a little about ayn rand's life, and what she was afraid of. (you might have to read up a bit on her yourself). But it would be interesting to talk to her about both the flaws and pluses of ayn rand's views. most of ayn rand's books aren't as crazy as her followers.

[leftyandproud]

27. Rand is THE anti-Marx, so....

give her a copy of the communist manifesto...

Let her see the other end of the spectrum.

[rumguy]

28. Ayn Rand is perfectly fine - she's libertarian, not a right-winger

Lots of progressives went through an Ayn Rand phase - like I myself did. Hillary Clinton did too. Just talk to her about it - she probably wants someone to talk to about it. Listen....don't judge.

[LoZoccolo]

31. "All your friends think you're a bitch."

Also, "keep this shit up and some day you'll be addicted to nasal spray."