Happy Birthday, she snarled

Today is Ayn Rand's birthday. I suppose the appropriate gifts would be cash and horse whips. Coincidentally, Charlie Sykes thinks he sees in today's news an echo of Atlas Shrugged.

Maybe if the monologues were shorter than a Fidel Castro speech

Every so often, someone writes again how wonderful Atlas Shrugged was. This week its Stephen Moore writing in the Wall Street Journal (ht: Sykes). Moore writes that today's economic stimulus bills are what Rand predicted in her 1957 novel.

For the uninitiated, the moral of the story is simply this: Politicians invariably respond to crises -- that in most cases they themselves created -- by spawning new government programs, laws and regulations. These, in turn, generate more havoc and poverty, which inspires the politicians to create more programs . . . and the downward spiral repeats itself until the productive sectors of the economy collapse under the collective weight of taxes and other burdens imposed in the name of fairness, equality and do-goodism.

In the book, these relentless wealth redistributionists and their programs are disparaged as "the looters and their laws." Every new act of government futility and stupidity carries with it a benevolent-sounding title. These include the "Anti-Greed Act" to redistribute income (sounds like Charlie Rangel's promises soak-the-rich tax bill) and the "Equalization of Opportunity Act" to prevent people from starting more than one business (to give other people a chance). My personal favorite, the "Anti Dog-Eat-Dog Act," aims to restrict cut-throat competition between firms and thus slow the wave of business bankruptcies. Why didn't Hank Paulson think of that?

These acts and edicts sound farcical, yes, but no more so than the actual events in Washington, circa 2008. We already have been served up the $700 billion "Emergency Economic Stabilization Act" and the "Auto Industry Financing and Restructuring Act." Now that Barack Obama is in town, he will soon sign into law with great urgency the "American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan." This latest Hail Mary pass will increase the federal budget (which has already expanded by $1.5 trillion in eight years under George Bush) by an additional $1 trillion -- in roughly his first 100 days in office.

The current economic strategy is right out of "Atlas Shrugged": The more incompetent you are in business, the more handouts the politicians will bestow on you. That's the justification for the $2 trillion of subsidies doled out already to keep afloat distressed insurance companies, banks, Wall Street investment houses, and auto companies -- while standing next in line for their share of the booty are real-estate developers, the steel industry, chemical companies, airlines, ethanol producers, construction firms and even catfish farmers. With each successive bailout to "calm the markets," another trillion of national wealth is subsequently lost. Yet, as "Atlas" grimly foretold, we now treat the incompetent who wreck their companies as victims, while those resourceful business owners who manage to make a profit are portrayed as recipients of illegitimate "windfalls."

What Moore does not mention is the dystopian fantasy of a world so completely devastated by poor economic choices that a select group comes out of hiding to impose their new order, although he quotes from the passage in the novel.

Galt: "You want me to be Economic Dictator?"

Mr. Thompson: "Yes!"

"And you'll obey any order I give?"

"Implicitly!"

If you detect a whiff of fascism, you're not alone. Whittaker Chambers famously wrote in his review of the book for National Review,

Something of this implication is fixed in the book's dictatorial tone, which is much its most striking feature. Out of a lifetime of reading, I can recall no other book in which a tone of overriding arrogance was so implacably sustained. Its shrillness is without reprieve. Its dogmatism is without appeal. In addition, the mind which finds this tone natural to it shares other characteristics of its type. 1) It consistently mistakes raw force for strength, and the rawer the force, the more reverent the posture of the mind before it. 2) It supposes itself to be the bringer of a final revelation. Therefore, resistance to the Message cannot be tolerated because disagreement can never be merely honest, prudent, or just humanly fallible. Dissent from revelation so final (because, the author would say, so reasonable) can only be willfully wicked. There are ways of dealing with such wickedness, and, in fact, right reason itself enjoins them. From almost any page of Atlas Shrugged, a voice can be heard, from painful necessity, commanding: "To a gas chamber — go!" The same inflexibly self-righteous stance results, too (in the total absence of any saving humor), in odd extravagances of inflection and gesture-that Dollar Sign, for example. At first, we try to tell ourselves that these are just lapses, that this mind has, somehow, mislaid the discriminating knack that most of us pray will warn us in time of the difference between what is effective and firm, and what is wildly grotesque and excessive. Soon we suspect something worse. We suspect that this mind finds, precisely in extravagance, some exalting merit; feels a surging release of power and passion precisely in smashing up the house. A tornado might feel this way, or Carrie Nation.

Moore writes that when he worked for the Cato Institute, anyone who had not read Atlas Shrugged was considered to be a virgin. Moore does not describe the exact method used to sacrifice the virgins to the goddess of materialism. As for me, far from feeling liberated after reading the novel, I felt sick to my stomach, as if I just finished looking at political pornography.

Feeling reasonable?

On the Media took another look at Ayn Rand yesterday. Worth listening to, if only for the Simpsons reference.

Below is part 1 of the referenced interview with Phil Donohue.


Unmentioned, sadly, was Whittaker Chambers' famous criticism of Rand's Atlas Shrugged. If Atlas Shrugged is going to become required reading, so should Chambers.

(And then there's my own little humble parody.)

Laughing past the graveyard

Christopher Hitchens demonstrates again in an obit piece on Norman Mailer why he's always worth reading,

Mailer also continually ran a great risk that very few are willing to run. I mean the danger of simply seeming ridiculous. He once nearly lost an eye in a bar fight, because he thought someone had implied that there was something homosexual, not about him, but about his dog! ("Nobody calls my dog a faggot.") He got whimpering drunk and made a complete idiot of himself on The Dick Cavett Show with Gore Vidal and Janet Flanner, and then reprinted the whole transcripted humiliation as part of an article. On that occasion, and on many, many others, beginning with An American Dream, he manifested an obsession with sodomy that was something a bit more (and perhaps even a bit less) than macho. I once made the mistake of asking him about this on a television show with Germaine Greer: Why was he so fixated on penetratio per anum and its occasions, male-on-male as well as male-on-female? Seizing my copy of his terrible novel Tough Guys Don't Dance, he scrawled an inscription that vowed revenge, and later gave an interview in which he said that the book had been ill-received in London because of a coterie of queer reviewers organized by me, Martin Amis, and Ian Hamilton. (Amis and I contemplated writing a hurt response, saying that this was very unfair to Hamilton.)

I'd comment myself on the passing of Norman Mailer but I confess I have never read any of his work. The tragedy of American culture is that so much that is important goes unread while Ayn Rand continues to sell.

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Funniest thing I've read in days

Terry Teachout wrote about the 50th anniversary of Atlas Shrugged in the November 19th issue of National Review. In his article, he quotes Ayn Rand's publisher, Bennett Cerf,

I remember when Atlas Shrugged was being edited by Hiram Haydn. The hero, John Galt, makes a speech that lasts about thirty-eight pages {sic!}. All that he says in it has been said over and over already in the book, but Hiram could not get her to cut a word.... I said, "Ayn, nobody's going to read that. You've said it all three or four times before, and it's thirty pages long. You've got to cut it." She looked at me calmly and said, "Would you cut the Bible?" So I gave up.

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Where will John Galt be?

The Randians are invading Washington DC on October 6th to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the publishing of Atlas Shrugged. I have an idea. Let's get a blogger field trip together and join the fun. Me, Dad29, and Tom McMahon. Let's see how fast we can get shown the door.

"Excuse me, could you please show me where the Whittaker Chambers study group is meeting?"

If they are committed Randians (pun intended), why is the meeting in Washington DC? Shouldn't they be meeting in New York instead? Or Chile? Or even Los Angeles? I mean, talk about the pursuit of self-gratification through production, what better place than Hollywood?

Too bad the Washington Times isn't a sponsor. Then they could've had the Moonies in attendance, too. Let's see, get the Libertarians, the Objectivists, the Moonies, and then invite the Scientologists and they could have a grand time. Na-nu, Na-nu. Mork calling Orson...

But seriously, what would Ayn Rand thought of the anniversary conference?

"No!" she snarled. Her lip curled even as she filled with passion for his selfish indifference. "Anniversaries are for the collectivists doomed to their past."

"Yes!" as he took her into his strong arms, arms once used to forge steel for the looters, but now they held her against her will, just the way she liked it. "You must learn to confront those that are weaker than you. It is only then can you overcome their weakness and find the greatness in yourself."

"I hate you," she growled, and attempted to slap his face but his grip was too strong which was what she knew she wanted but could not say. She could not be weak in front of him.

"You love me," he said forcefully, looking into her eyes as if compelling her to admit weakness, "and you're going with me to Washington."

Yes, she would go with him to Washington, and she would confront the looters and the collectivists. She would tell them that she was there to deliver a manifesto to unite mankind under the single banner of the dollar sign. For it is the dollar sign which is true mark of productivity and ability. She would show them that there are superior men in the world producing for the sake of the doing and not for mankind. That they achieve their greatness only for themselves. That the highest attainment a man can reach is when he does something only for himself. Her heart beat faster and broke free from his grip. She kissed him hard, harder than he had ever been kissed before. She was worthy now. She was his equal. And they were superior.

Blech.

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Oh good, something else to scare my children with

Congressman Dave Obey has a book out, Raising Hell for Justice: The Washington Battles of a Heartland Progressive. Here's a list of things almost as bad as being forced to read Obey's book, but are still preferable experiences:
1. Listen to Joel McNally on the radio
2. Drink Drano
3. Put my hand in a paper shredder
4. Watch a Jane Fonda film festival
5. Visit Obey's office to complain about something
6. Listen to Vogon poetry
7. Invite a Jehovah's Witness with his Scientologist best friend into my home
8. Have a discussion group in my home to discuss Atlas Shrugged
9. Listen to Joe Theismann call a football game
10. Be staked to an ant mound and be forced to listen to the contestants from American Idol explain why they should win.

All my prejudices wrapped up in one novel

I can't stop laughing. This is enough to ruin a literary critic for life.

Fountainhead Earth is a twenty-volume philosophical fiction novel by Nobel prizewinning author Ayn Rand. It was Rand's last work of fiction, and all volumes after the first were published posthumously. All volumes made the New York Times Best Seller list, but the series received almost universal critical condemnation.

The series successfully achieved negative sales, with critics sending their copies back as returns, and more copies being remaindered than were actually printed.

Fountainhead Earth is not a series of twenty novels, it just feels like it.

You don't want to skip, "Fountainhead Earth and Objectivism".

Many readers are confused that the series appears to jump from Volume II to Volume IV. Volume III, No News Is Xenu's, is the s3kr1t l3v3l you can only read after a suitable degree of study and payment of a large sum of cash to the Church of Objectivism. In Volume III, you learn of the Philosopher Xenu and how you are covered in Nerdy Thetans, the souls of dead Heinlein-reading geeks who never shut up.

I'm looking forard to reading the next book, Xenu Shrugged.

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