Rand rants & the search for strong women
Finished The Biography of Ayn Rand about a month ago, and found some hastily-typed thoughts on it in (what else) an old Word document just now. The book was absolutely fascinating, and it was inspiring to read about a woman accomplishing more than ye olde Marriage and Children (funny how I always rolled my eyes at women ranting against that when I was younger, but more and more that's becoming a fear as I get older -- look how easy it would be to never do anything with your life, look how gently the responsibility to achieve can be lifted from your shoulders: just become a mommy, and your life is automatically worthwhile. Not to say that that isn't true & valid to an extent, and not (lord knows) to say that the job of wife and mother is at all easy, but that's not all I want for myself. Marriage is one thing, I suppose, provided you find the right person, but most men want children, and I want some damn good stories to tell my grandkids first). Now I want to run out and find more cool women to read about; recommendations, anyone?
Anyhow, here's the mini-rant I wrote, mainly after being appalled by events that took place later in her life.
It’s funny; you can argue the pros and cons of Objectivism all you like, but all you have to do is look at Ayn Rand’s life to see them lived out, beyond argument. Positives were her achievement, her discipline, her integrity of values; on the other hand, you see reason glorified and all emotion repressed (and in later years even labelled as evil); you see arrogance, you see total lack of human empathy (such as her attempt to justify her affair rationally by calling her husband and her lover’s wife into the room beforehand to explain to them why they should logically be allowed to have an affair, which affair, conducted under really hideous circumstances, led to her husband's alcoholism & the lover's wife's nervous breakdown), selfishness glorified, the “weaker” (kinder) being victimized by the “stronger” (the more ruthless and selfish and arrogant). It leaves room for really only one personality type; it preaches absolutes, but leaves giant loopholes for using and distorting reason to try to justify the unjustifiable; it features a rigid system of morality and personal ethics, with a gaping loophole: human reason is the absolute, and humans are the masters of deceiving themselves in ways they deem perfectly rational. It leaves no room for human flaw or error; there’s this (correct me if I'm wrong on the philosopher -- C&P reference here) Nietzche-an insistence on the “superman,” with everyone else being more or less superfluous, and other points of view deemed "evil".
This isn't to say that Objectivism doesn't have its positives and uses; there are many things I do like about it, but I'd never seen the darker side so clearly as in reading the biography. I would say that as a belief system, though flawed, it could still work, but definitely only when tempered by another resource. Dogmatic Objectivism is kinda scary.
Anyhow, here's the mini-rant I wrote, mainly after being appalled by events that took place later in her life.
It’s funny; you can argue the pros and cons of Objectivism all you like, but all you have to do is look at Ayn Rand’s life to see them lived out, beyond argument. Positives were her achievement, her discipline, her integrity of values; on the other hand, you see reason glorified and all emotion repressed (and in later years even labelled as evil); you see arrogance, you see total lack of human empathy (such as her attempt to justify her affair rationally by calling her husband and her lover’s wife into the room beforehand to explain to them why they should logically be allowed to have an affair, which affair, conducted under really hideous circumstances, led to her husband's alcoholism & the lover's wife's nervous breakdown), selfishness glorified, the “weaker” (kinder) being victimized by the “stronger” (the more ruthless and selfish and arrogant). It leaves room for really only one personality type; it preaches absolutes, but leaves giant loopholes for using and distorting reason to try to justify the unjustifiable; it features a rigid system of morality and personal ethics, with a gaping loophole: human reason is the absolute, and humans are the masters of deceiving themselves in ways they deem perfectly rational. It leaves no room for human flaw or error; there’s this (correct me if I'm wrong on the philosopher -- C&P reference here) Nietzche-an insistence on the “superman,” with everyone else being more or less superfluous, and other points of view deemed "evil".
This isn't to say that Objectivism doesn't have its positives and uses; there are many things I do like about it, but I'd never seen the darker side so clearly as in reading the biography. I would say that as a belief system, though flawed, it could still work, but definitely only when tempered by another resource. Dogmatic Objectivism is kinda scary.