Who Is Ayn Rand?

So we've established that math is no longer taught in our public education system and now, apparently, neither is reading. I read a book review yesterday in the New York Times, written by Adam Kirsch (a senior editor for The New Republic) and supposedly reviewing Anne Heller's book, Ayn Rand and the World She Made. I say supposedly because, aside from quoting a few passages from the book, there is nothing in this review that reads at all like a book review. There is no opinion given. There are no comparisons of "this is good" and "that is not so good". This review says nothing about the book. Instead, it only tries to make a statement about Rand, conveniently enough, the same statement the book apparently makes. Beating your political drum is not how you write a book review, last time I checked.
Worse, the statement made about Rand is blatantly false and gives the distinct impression that neither writer actually bothered to learn a thing about Rand before deciding to speak against her. I'm going to give you an excerpt from the review in a moment, but I need to preface it with some background in order for it to make sense.
If you have read Rand's novel Atlas Shrugged, you are already wholly familiar with the climactic John Galt speech toward the end. If you haven't read Atlas Shrugged, that one speech is nearly as long as many novels and is the encapsulation of everything Rand was trying to say through the course of the book. She spent two years writing that section alone. Needless to say, when editors wanted her to cut the speech, she wasn't interested. Instead, they reached a compromise where Rand would give up seven cents per copy sold from her royalties in exchange for the pages needed to print the entire speech. Considering the fact that she built a financial empire on the strength of that novel, it's a safe bet that she made the right decision.
Now for the excerpt:

"Yet while Rand took to wearing a dollar-sign pin to advertise her love of capitalism, Heller makes clear that the author had no real affection for dollars themselves. Giving up her royalties to preserve her vision is something that no genuine capitalist, and few popular novelists, would have done. It is the act of an intellectual, of someone who believes that ideas matter more than lucre."

First of all, claiming that Rand gave up her royalties is a horrible misrepresentation of what actually happened. She negotiated a deal where she received slightly smaller royalties in exchange for something else she wanted. That is pure capitalism and the fact that these writers claim otherwise indicates that they know nothing about capitalism. The fact that they claim a novelist wouldn't make this decision - the decision to cut a small amount of renumeration in exchange for keeping the work whole - indicates that they know nothing about writing. The only novelists who wouldn't make this trade are the hacks who shouldn't be writing in the first place.
As for the rest of the claim, all I can really say is, duh! Anyone who has read more than ten sentences of Rand's writing already knows this. She didn't love the dollar and she made that clear on numerous occasions. Ayn Rand abhorred dollar chasers, people who thought that acquiring money was the goal. Money, according to Rand, is a symbol. The American dollar is a symbol of trading value for value and meeting as equals instead of master and slave. Rand did not, as Kirsch implies in the review, revere businessmen in her writing while disdaining them in real life. Most of the villains in her books are businessmen! Those businessmen she revered were the ones - and only the ones - who lived up to her ideals. All others received even more scorn than the average "looter" or "moocher". It was not that Rand believed that businessmen were better. It was that she believed they should be better.
Ayn Rand was far from perfect. She had brilliant philosophical axioms but, when she tried to expand on those axioms with corollaries, she tended to get deranged and extreme. She was, in my opinion, an idiot savant. Miraculous genius in some areas, brain dead imbecile in others. In Rand's defense, most of her dumb ideas can be understood in context. She was a child in Russia in the early years of the Communist take over. See if you can live through something like that without going a little extreme on some issues.
Adam Kirsch really wants to speak ill of Ayn Rand. That glows through most of the words in this so-called review. Unfortunately for Kirsch, the most he can come up with is lying about what she stood for, pointing out that her personal life was not as ideal as she would have preferred, and dismissing her characters as being nothing more than "abstract principles set to moving and talking." I think that last part might explain the rest. Apparently Kirsch is one of those pathetic creatures who must believe that everyone else is as venal as he is, in order to justify his own existence. Rand didn't believe in people having to justify their existence and here's a news flash for Mr. Kirsch: Those of us who don't believe we have to justify our existence to the likes of you, those of us who really do believe in high ideals and do our utmost to live by them, those of us who believe that those who cannot produce have no right to dictate to those who can, those of us who believe that the American dollar is a symbol and that it is your perversion of that symbol that has devalued it ... We really do exist. We are not abstract principles and we really are disgusted with the fact that we have to share the world with people like you, who would rather tear us down than get out of our way and let us build up.
If you're going to criticize a writer, you should probably know something about what she wrote first. Of course, why I would expect such standards from a rag like The New Republic is a mystery. I guess I just have high standards. I'm a walking abstract. Well, at least I can read.

Some Comments on Liberal and Libertarian

Anyone who spends any times here knows I spend lots of time reading on the internet and that I do so from a wide variety of sources. I do not pull my news from "conservative" sources or "liberal" sources" or blah blah blah. I read across the spectrum. If I find something of interest from a source I know has a definite slant or that I know others strongly believe has a definite slant, I will go find other sources to confirm the details (unless I'm commenting on the article itself and not on the news in the article, of course). I read sources with which I definitely do not agree because I believe in the maxim Know Thy Enemy. Because of this, I come across all kinds of goofiness and strange stuff.
Two things I've been seeing large doses of lately are misuse of or pointless arguments about the words "liberal" and "libertarian". Much of this comes from idiots who are just trying to make an ideological statement. Some, however, comes, from people who are trying to "prove" how educated they are by quoting classic French Libertarian philosophers (as though philosophies never change or a modern political movement would be 100% based in a single classic philosophy) or by pointing that that America's Founding Fathers were "liberal" (as though using the same label equals standing for the same things). Because I do believe that both of these are important words, allow me to take a few minutes to clear up some misconceptions.
We'll start with "liberal" because that, in this case, will be the easier one. For one thing, you'll rarely see me use the word. Unlike most commenters, I fully understand that it is a highly-charged word that has multiple meanings. Put simply, it potentially means so much that it practically means nothing. You cannot say "liberal" and have anyone actually understand you unless you also apply various other conditions to clearly present context. Yes, the Founding Fathers were quite liberal for their time (that accented phrase is quite important here) but that does not, in and of itself, mean that they would agree with or support someone who was liberal for another time. The term "liberal", in this usage, is entirely context dependent. Without a statement of when and where, it has no meaning and differing points of when and where can give it very different meanings. Yes, Classic Liberalism is the foundation of the concepts of equal and civil rights (going all the way back to the ancient Greeks) and yes the Left often (though far from always) gets a better scorecard in this area. Yes, it has been the modern Left who have spearheaded the civil rights and equal rights movements (and they do deserve praise for this), but it has also been the modern Left who have hijacked the civil and equal rights movements to turn them into an Animal Farm "some are more equal than others" agenda (and they deserve condemnation for this). In addition to this, Classical Liberalism has nothing to do with environmentalism, socialism, welfare, or any number of other ideas that define the modern Left. This is why you will rarely see me use the word "liberal" when speaking of the Left and this is why making comparisons between the modern Left and the Founding fathers - comparisons based solely on the fact that both can be called "liberal" - is just plain silly.
Libertarian is a bit more tricky because it is a loaded term with which few people are truly even familiar. I've seen people - including some of those smarties quoting French philosophers - who equate Libertarianism with anarchy. While this may or may not be true in that French philosophy class (I don't think it is, but I haven't studied enough French philosophy to say for certain - I can say that the French Libertarian philosophers I have studied certainly did not equate their philosophy with anarchy) it is adamantly not true in the modern political movement that calls itself Libertarian. It is a centerpiece of the political Libertarian platform that there is a legitimate role for limited government. While the stress there should be on "limited" (as in, as tiny as you can get away with), accepting a legitimate role for even a minuscule government is miles away from anarchy. In fact, it is worth noting that, when Libertarians and Anarchists have to make common cause with other political groups, you can almost depend on self-professed Libertarians lining up with the Right and self-professed Anarchists lining up with the Left. You do the math.
There are those who laugh at Libertarians saying such things as, "How can you believe government is too inefficient to handle welfare but is more efficient at warfare?" Well, you kind of missing the point. Government inefficiencies are not the reason for the belief in limited government. They are simply one point that even non-limited-government types can grasp and go along with. Government may or may not actually be more efficient at warfare (though governments as a whole have certainly had plenty of practice) but warfare is one of government's only legitimate roles. Those classical and neoclassical philosophers who espoused the ideals of liberty and equality upon which the Libertarian movement is based all taught and demonstrated that one of the only reasons that free people accept a government is defense of the people. Defending from threats both external (military) and internal (police) fits squarely within the Libertarian definition of limited government, not for reasons of efficiency or inefficiency, but because it is a legitimate function of government.
I had to laugh when I read one of those smarties who was equating Libertarian with anarchy ask another commenter, "Have you even read Ayn Rand?" First of all, Rand was not the founder of modern American Libertarianism. She was the founder of Objectivism. There is a big difference. While the two share many points in common (and some of the principles of Objectivism, as stated in Rand's novels Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead, were the starting points of Libertarianism), the former is a political philosophy that seeks to define the limited and legitimate function of government while the latter is a moral and ethical philosophy that seeks to define proper behavior for all thinking people. You might notice a difference in goals there. However, in answer to the question (which wasn't asked of me, but I'll answer anyway), yes I have read the books, numerous times. Have you? Rand stated repeatedly that the military, the courts, and the police were the only legitimate functions of government. Not, apparently, an anarchist.
To use one of Ayn Rand's favorite phrases (it seems appropriate here), words have meaning. If you use them without knowing their meaning or use them incorrectly despite knowing their meaning then you are a fool who hurts not only your own cause but all other causes around you as well. There are many of things for the Left and Right to argue about but, since neither side seems very skilled with the use of a dictionary, I would suggest that labels not be one of them.