Rand’s ideas truly revolutionary

Exactly 100 years ago, in the Russian capital of St. Petersburg,
the most revolutionary 20th century American thinker was born.

The girl with big black eyes had been given the name Alice
Rosenbaum. But from the moment she constructed her very first
thought, she was already Ayn Rand ““ philosopher, novelist and
romantic.

She was the same at age 9 when she grew enamored by the brave
and confident French comic-book hero Cyrus, as she was in late
adolescence when she began to define her own values. And in
adulthood, too ““ especially in adulthood ““ her vision
of the heroic man reigned as the centerpiece of her fiction and of
her philosophy, which she called Objectivism.

As she described it, “My philosophy, in essence, is the
concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the
moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his
noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute.”

What this meant and what she would proclaim years later in the
United States was nothing short of a moral revolution.

Nathaniel Branden, who was for two decades Rand’s closest
friend and intellectual ally, and a pioneering psychologist in his
own right, told me that “her most lasting contribution is her
development of an ethics of rational self-interest, giving people
an alternative to a morality of self-sacrifice and a morality of
mindless hedonism.”

Rand condemned and broke from two millennia of altruistic moral
tradition, which held that man’s highest moral act is his
sacrifice to a higher good. She had witnessed it in the communist
regime that had ruined her native land. She saw it now in the works
of Immanuel Kant and in the Bible. And she was revolted by it.

But on the other side, she observed a phenomenon equally
dangerous. She saw a generation without a philosophy ““ a
generation that pursued fantasies of the moment and lived life on a
whim.

Rand believed that both sides were antithetical to reason and
thus to man’s survival and perfection. So she gave a unique
new choice: a philosophy of the rational, productive and proud
individual.

In politics, she thought that man’s fullest potential can
be actualized only in a capitalist society ““ where the
individual is the creative architect of his own destiny. Yet on a
more basic level, Rand ushered in a new era of intellectual
discourse to the United States and its colleges.

In the 1960s, she spoke in packed lecture halls at Harvard,
Columbia and numerous other elite universities. She attracted
thousands of young people to Objectivism, to the intellectual life.
In many universities, there were new clubs and inner circles whose
members thrived on philosophical conversations. They felt very much
part of a grand historical movement.

But why this uproarious response? Branden explains, “Rand
dramatizes the heroic potentials of life in ways which can educate
and inspire young people. Her work teaches them that their lives
matter, and that they should fight for the best within them.”
In short, Rand inspired American youth to think.

But despite the exaltations of her blind supporters (Branden is
not one of them), Rand had her limitations. She believed
homosexuality to be immoral and charity to be disgusting. Once on
the Phil Donahue Show, she famously said that women should not run
for president. And she also had a paranoid aversion to facial hair
and believed that bearded men hid some deep psychological
problems.

But the denial of these limitations by Objectivism’s true
believers is no less ridiculous than their exaggeration by her
critics. Rand was neither a deity nor an emotional nutcase. All
things considered, Rand was a thinker of the highest caliber and
her ideas, whether adored or disputed, are powerful.

Rand’s influence has been phenomenal, and it has become
difficult not to be touched by her in some way.

On the political scene, Alan Greenspan, the chairman of the
Federal Reserve, was once part of Rand’s inner circle,
ironically termed “the collective.” Barry Goldwater
admired Rand and Ronald Reagan was receptive, too.

On the intellectual level, scores of Rand scholars hold
prominent positions in academia ““ from the humanities
department at UC San Diego to the political science department at
New York University. Rand is now the focus of major scholarship and
research.

Culturally, Rand has found her way into “Jeopardy”
and “Who Wants to be a Millionaire?” and the Daily
Bruin crossword puzzle. She was mentioned in “South
Park” and was the center of a parody in “The
Simpsons.” There is even a gay porn star named Jon Galt,
self-named after the protagonist of Rand’s magnum opus, Atlas
Shrugged.

Rand disputed the maxim, “Judge not that ye be not
judged.” She always said, “Judge and be prepared to be
judged.”

On her one hundredth birthday and two decades after her death,
safely distanced from her life but not still affected by her death,
a judgment can be made. By most measures, it is a happy judgment
““ one that shines brightly on Rand and those whom she
continues to inspire.

Hovannisian is a second-year history and philosophy student.
E-mail him at [email protected]. Send general comments to
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