Tuesday, January 08, 2008
AYN RAND
At Jewish Virtual Library:
The life and work of Ayn Rand, the novelist and philosopher who promoted an ethics called "Objectivism," provide ample evidence for those who believe that human beings are inherently self-contradictory and illogical. In her novels, Rand glorified the self-made man who aggressively demonstrated his superiority over the masses through his business acumen. As a writer, Rand had little to do with entrepreneurial activities. While she did eventually make money from her writing, she always lived frugally. Her husband of fifty years was a quiet and reserved man, never financially successful, who was happiest in his garden or painting at his easel. Her ideal physical types were tall, blond, muscular men and delicate, graceful blonde women-she herself was small, dark, and never at ease with her body. She believed passionately in the importance of the individual, yet her books developed a cultlike following among the millions of people who read them. The chief irony is that Rand became best known for her insistence on the primacy of human reason.
The eldest of three sisters, Ayn Rand was born Alissa Rosenbaum on February 2, 1905, in St. Petersburg, Russia, to Fronz and Anna Rosenbaum. Her father, a pharmacist, had his own shop, a rare position for Jews in Russia. A precocious child, Alyssa declared herself an atheist in her early teens, and while she never denied her Jewish heritage, she also never softened her opposition to religion or any other form of "mysticism."
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From the Ludwig von Mises Institute website:
Translation: "Prominent libertarian ideologists and economists which should be mentioned includes John Locke, Adam Smith, James Mill, John Stuart Mill, Frederic Bastiat, Friedrich August Hayek, Ludwig von Mises, Ayn Rand, Murray Rothbard and Hans-Hermann Hoppe"
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KBOO-FM interview with Robert Anton Wilson, by Cliff Walker:
But atheistic religions have pretty much the same structure -- in the Western World, anyway -- the same dogmatic structure. Marxism is very similar to fundamentalist Protestantism: they know the truth; they don't care how many people they have to kill till they get their "truth" established. Objectivism is very similar, that's another atheistic religion. I've always believed Ayn Rand was really the Grand Duchess Anastasia. I think that one in West Virginia is a fake. Ayn Rand acted a hell of a lot more like a Romanov than that woman in West Virginia. And I think after the Bolsheviks killed her family and she escaped, she decided she would found another atheistic religion to compete with Communism, and that's how Objectivism got created.--Robert Anton Wilson
