Tim R tells us
It’s worth noting that Rand admired Mises, but hated Rothbard.
Indeed. Jerome Tuccille relates the story in his It usually begins with Ayn Rand. Not only did Rothbard have the poor taste to be married to a practicing Christian – who didn’t appreciate Rand’s refutation of religion – but the ingrate refused to leave his wife. The final straw came in the summer of 1958.
Shortly afterward there was a meeting at which he found himself denounced for not smoking cigarettes. Cigarettes were pro-life and pro-man since they were manufactured by productive capitalists for human enjoyment; to be against tobacco on the grounds that it was destroying your lungs was to be against the creative efforts of industrialists who had gone through all their trouble for consumers who didn’t appreciate what was being done for them. It was a paradigmatic case of ingratitude at the very least; an argument could even be made that it was immoral.
Tuccille relates by this time Rothbard had had enough and left ‘the Randian nest’.
That’s a unique was of looking at cig companies. Never thought of that one.
JC
15 Mar 10 at 2:39 pm
Well that’s pretty much convinced me not to bother reading any of Rand’s books.
Steve Edney
15 Mar 10 at 3:37 pm
People are allowed to be wrong, Steve… and being wrong on one thing doesn’t make you wrong everywhere.
daddy dave
15 Mar 10 at 3:39 pm
or rather
writers are allowed to be nuts and still be worth reading.
jtfsoon
15 Mar 10 at 3:42 pm
writers are allowed to be nuts and still be worth reading.
If they have an iota of talent.
THR
15 Mar 10 at 3:44 pm
Ayn Rand had some whacky ideas – especially where love/romance was concerned – but it’s really your loss if you dismiss everything she’s written as a result.
If I used the same approach to music by ignoring lefties, there wouldn’t be much to listen to.
Fleeced
15 Mar 10 at 3:47 pm
Well it seems like there’s a bit of interest in Rand which is good!
Personally I think we should focus on the substance of the ideas, not the personalities.
Rothbard was an anarchist. Rand thought this was ridiculous. She obviously didn’t want him in her close circle of friends. At the time, the Objectivists thought Christianity in the US was dying. Amongst academics it probably was. They didn’t think people took it seriously anymore. They were wrong, but this is before the increasing rate of growth of pentecostal Christianity in the US and Reagan’s religious right voters.
I doubt the cigarette thing was really of major significance? That’s what Rothbard might say.
Rand ackowledges that peolpe have different tastes. I’ve seen her do it live on the Donahue show. ie: Rothbard’s accusations that Rand didn’t put up with him liking Mozart appear exaggerated.
Ayn Rand actually did quit smoking later in life. She was highly sceptical of statistical studies and epidemiological type research. Initially, this is what anti-smoking reserach was based on. Once the mechanism was explained she quit. Too late of course, she died of lung cancer.
The cigarette metaphor is explained in Atlas Shrugged. It’s similar to the myth of Prometheus – the Greek God who gave men the fire.
Steve: “Well that’s pretty much convinced me not to bother reading any of Rand’s books”.
Why’s that Steve?
It’s interesting for me to note how strongly people feel about Rand. If she’s such a quack, why all the talk? She’s not hugely popular. Most Australians haven’t read her books. There aren’t many Objectivists around, I’ve never met one. Her political ideas aren’t in vogue. So what’s the fuss really about then?
Tim R
15 Mar 10 at 5:26 pm
he found himself denounced for not smoking cigarettes
.
Now that kind of thing reminds me of what political sub-culture? If you advocate a philosophy wherein everyone leaves everyone else alone, then um, surely you don;t go around telling them what to do.
Adrien
15 Mar 10 at 5:32 pm
Apparently Alan Greenspan was a fan of her, so she can’t be too unpopular.
THR
15 Mar 10 at 5:34 pm
Well, if the plot summaries given by Johann Hari in that Slate review I linked to before are any guide to her novels, it is a little hard for me to understand their popularity:
“In The Fountainhead, published in 1943, a heroic architect called Howard Roark designs a housing project for the poor—not out of compassion but because he wants to build something mighty. When his plans are slightly altered, he blows up the housing project, saying the purity of his vision has been contaminated by evil government bureaucrats….
For her longest novel, Atlas Shrugged (1957)… she imagined the super-rich in America going on strike against progressive taxation—and said the United States would swiftly regress to an apocalyptic hellhole if the Donald Trumps and Ted Turners ceased their toil. The abandoned masses are described variously as “savages,” “refuse,” “inanimate objects,” and “imitations of living beings,” picking through rubbish. One of the strikers deliberately causes a train crash, and Rand makes it clear she thinks the murder victims deserved it, describing in horror how they all supported the higher taxes that made the attack necessary.”
steven from brisbane
15 Mar 10 at 5:47 pm
I also see no one has responded to the extract THR put in the other thread about her clear approval of a serial killer.
Doesn’t the plot of her novels, and that bit about the serial killer, just indicate that she was in the same mode of thinking as the great 20th century killers who thought the implementation of an idea was more important than mere human life?
steven from brisbane
15 Mar 10 at 5:51 pm
I also think she was responding the idea that people had no right to use the government under the threat of violence to steal their property.
The clarity of such an issue is what would one do if someone appeared on your doorstep and demanded the contents of your wallet.
JC
15 Mar 10 at 5:59 pm
I made the unfortunate decision to read her books – what a load of claptrap. Her mischaracterisations put her work into the league of airport reads.
You get a little weary of academics romanticising the working man into some sort of super hero.
A great cure for insomnia
rog
15 Mar 10 at 6:00 pm
That’s because you’re a very superficial thinker, Rog. In future I would stick to Barbara Cartland old romance novels if I were you as I honestly think this sort of thing is a little beyond you.
JC
15 Mar 10 at 6:10 pm
Zoo magazine hasn’t reviewed Fountainhead yet, so rog isn’t a fan.
Infidel Tiger
15 Mar 10 at 6:13 pm
IS that true, Rog? Hasn’t Zoo given the go ahead yet?
JC
15 Mar 10 at 6:15 pm
Steven, I’ve tried to address the issue of writers and philosophers being prime arseholes while still being interesting over at our place. It’s a large issue and by no means confined to Ayn Rand. Considering the number of case studies of the phenomenon people have come up with in the comments, it seems to be very widespread, perhaps even the rule rather than the exception.
skepticlawyer
15 Mar 10 at 6:58 pm
Oh yes, SL, I am well aware of the disjoint between the private lives and public views of philosophers and intellectuals of all kind. Have you read Paul Johnson’s “Intellectuals”? That’s basically its theme.
But it’s not just that Rand was (to put it mildly) a disagreeable person that I am questioning here: it’s the issue as to whether her novels indicated she thought the lives of those who disagreed with her were pretty much expendable.
steven from brisbane
15 Mar 10 at 7:51 pm
People die in novels all the time – it’s called literature. Rand bumps off a lot of the type of people she doesn’t like in the great train disaster in Atlas Shrugged. But I don’t think she killed them off because she didn’t like them, rather they died as a consequence of the silly ideas they themselves proposed.
Sinclair Davidson
15 Mar 10 at 7:59 pm
Look, some of these arty/philosophical types actually killed people or explicitly advocated their deaths in a way that this lawyer would consider incitement. We’re not talking diary entries, although that’s bad enough. It’s really very spooky and in some ways reflects badly on the wider culture, in that the rest of us let them get away with it.
skepticlawyer
15 Mar 10 at 8:00 pm
I think Sinc is spot on. The people who died in Rand’s novels died *as a consequence of the ideas they expounded*. Rand’s worst crime in this regard is writing with a fricking sledgehammer but apparently even that is too subtle for steve who takes it all too literally.
Jason Soon
15 Mar 10 at 8:07 pm
Have you actually read Rand, steve, or just plot summaries?
Infidel Tiger
15 Mar 10 at 8:11 pm
Yes, the anvils.
skepticlawyer
15 Mar 10 at 8:12 pm
Jason/Sinclair, is Hari right or not when he says that in the novel, one of the strikers deliberately causes the train accident? If so, are the actions of the striker painted in an admirable light, and is the fate of the victims deserved?
I have not read the book, I am simply relaying a criticism of Hari. If he is wrong, that’s fine; if he is right, it counts as a reason to be (at the least) wary of her as a moral influence.
steven from brisbane
15 Mar 10 at 8:13 pm
From memory Hari’s summary is correct. I don’t see how that refutes the wider point, that the people she scorned in her novels (not just the ones in the train accident) ultimately suffered as a logical implication of her ideas.
It’s called fiction Steve. If you can point to anywhere in her non fiction writings where Rand advocated domestic terrorism please tell us. In practice the most extreme thing she did was campaign for Barry Goldwater.
Jason Soon
15 Mar 10 at 8:16 pm
No, not one of the strikers. From memory some bureaucrat orders a coal fired train to go through the tunnel (not a diesel train) and while the higher-up people know that this is unsafe, none of them want to countermand the instruction and they all pass the buck down the line until some young train official is bullied into signing approval. As expected everyone on the train, except the driver who jumps off, dies of aphyxiation. Rand describes many of these people and how their views were consistent with the events and circumstances of their deaths. My copy is in my office and I can check the details tomorrow.
Sinclair Davidson
15 Mar 10 at 8:27 pm
Just read Hari’s comment
That is not how I recall the train disaster.
Sinclair Davidson
15 Mar 10 at 8:33 pm
In light of the GFC, one could imagine an amusing re-write of Rand’s tripe, wherein bankers and financiers ‘go Galt’, to the betterment of everybody left behind…
THR
15 Mar 10 at 8:47 pm
As I thought Hari’s version is not correct. Here is a summary
Sinclair Davidson
15 Mar 10 at 9:02 pm
1. the public servant schlep commandeers the train.
2. the schlep takes precedence through the tunnel.
3. The responsible railway officials have resigned.
4. Leaving the decision making to incompetents such as Lurch and Rudd-like creatures.
5. the owner is bullied by Lurch and Rudd-like creatures and he too passes the buck to a green horn.
6. Not knowing what to do the kid signs off on the public servant’s right of way through the tunnel
7. The train explodes after colliding with the military train.
Steve from Brisbane suggests this is an act of terror. Like Homer, Steve ought to be banned until he shows a little more cognitive ability and able to keep up with the rest of the class.
What a wild goose chase.
JC
15 Mar 10 at 9:28 pm
In light of the GFC, one could imagine an amusing re-write of Rand’s tripe, wherein bankers and financiers ‘go Galt’, to the betterment of everybody left behind…
That’s called the ‘fantasy’ genre of fiction! I can see why THR likes it
Michael Sutcliffe
15 Mar 10 at 9:32 pm
Well if superficial thinkers like myself dont get Rand its no wonder her philosophy was a failure
rog
15 Mar 10 at 10:53 pm
was/is
rog
15 Mar 10 at 10:54 pm
Yes, true but I am not concerned that they were wrong about cigarette smoking. That’s being wrong and I can accept that.
Denoucing individuals for making a free choice in not smoking however doesn’t strike you incredibly crazy and cultish? May as well be marxists or scientoligists.
There is a whole world of good writing by people that I will probably not get time to read why would waste time reading cultist potboilers?
Steve Edney
16 Mar 10 at 10:22 am
Steve – setting Rand herself aside, Atlas Shrugged is an important book. I don’t always agree with important books, but reading them is useful.
Sinclair Davidson
16 Mar 10 at 10:43 am
I agree that its useful to read important books regardless of whether you agree with them, but is it really that important a book?
Sure a lot of people have read it, but from what I can tell (not having read it) other people (Hayek etc) have covered the material in a more reasonable fashion.
Steve Edney
16 Mar 10 at 11:05 am
Train crash as metaphor. Is Ayn Rand like Tom Wolfe. Channelling Zola?.
.
Zola, there was a writer.
Adrien
16 Mar 10 at 11:16 am
Mises Anti-capitalist sentiment covers the same gound very well.
Is it that important? – probably not. I can’t say that anyone one book (certainly not a novel) is that important that it must be read.
Sinclair Davidson
16 Mar 10 at 11:30 am
I can’t say that anyone one book (certainly not a novel) is that important that it must be read.
.
Well mostly yes. Except The Long Good-Bye. That must be read. Go and read it. Now!
Adrien
16 Mar 10 at 12:03 pm
I thought I’d click through and read some comments on this article out of interest, which I don’t normally do. That was a mistake… why is everyone so obsessed with things Rand supposedly said or did in her personal life? What happened to scepticism? This stuff about Rand forcing people to smoke and forcing them to divorce their religious wives goes DIRECTLY against everything she ever stood for and yet you guys just gobble it up without question. Either read her effin books yourselves and make up your own mind or go read New Idea for the latest meaningless gossip on celebrities, at least their BS isn’t 50 years old.
I don’t necessarily agree with everything she stood for but she has done a lot of good for the cause of freedom. I see the Austrian school as more dealing with the economics of free markets whereas Rand dealt with the philosophy and morality of freedom. They’re not competitors but could be complimentary.
One reason Rand probably had a problem with the Austrian school (I think) is her position was that capitalism was the only moral philosophy and that people who argued for capitalism on the basis that it “works out better for everyone” were as bad as or worse than socialists. Austrian economics could be seen as trying to justify capitalism on the basis that “everyone is better off.”
dr00
19 Mar 10 at 6:01 pm