Light On Dark Water

The Pop-Psych Rand

Part of my routine when I arrive at work every morning involves downloading some data from the web site of a company we work with. They always have a quotation on the login page, and they change it every day. Sometimes it's humorous, more often it's vaguely inspirational in a pop-psychology self-help you-can-do-it sort of way. Today it's from Ayn Rand, from Atlas Shrugged:

Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark in the hopeless swaps of the not-quite, the not-yet, and the not-at-all. Do not let the hero in your soul perish in lonely frustration for the life you deserved and have never been able to reach. The world you desire can be won.

Since this is a technology company in the urban northeast, odds are slim that the management is terribly right-wing. This is an example of what I think a lot of people take from Rand, especially if they only read Atlas: not so much the hard-edged ethic of selfishness, but the follow-your-dreams, fulfill-your-potential sort of stuff. Not that there isn't some overlap between those two. And both are very American.

Maclin Horton
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10 responses to “The Pop-Psych Rand”

  1. Noah G.

    That quote would’ve appealed to me a lot 10 or so years ago. Good thing I didn’t come across it. 😉
    Really though, regarding her general appeal, I was thinking–maybe it’s a little like when I see a movie addressing some subject matter that I think is super important, and/or that I’m really interested in at the time, and that no other movie that I’ve come across is dealing with. No matter how bad the movie is, chances are I’ll like it. Sometimes a lot. (And then I’ll see other, better, movies later on that deal with the subject, and the first one is less appealing).
    I guess that wouldn’t account for the fans who are more well-read, educated, etc. I still don’t know what their excuse is exactly. (Paul Ryan, again, for instance. Why didn’t he just qualify his comments about her? That says to me that he had to be ignorant, to some extent at least, of her dark side. Anyway, whatever the case may be, I really do like him. I’ve seen/read more about him recently. He’s an honest, intelligent, well-meaning person in my view.)

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  2. Mac

    The quote taken in isolation is not so bad, or at least no worse than a lot of similar stuff.
    From what I’ve seen of him, I agree with you about Ryan, though I don’t think he qualifies as being among your well-read, well-educated, where literature or philosophy is concerned. I mean, if he had thought more clearly or deeply, he would have seen the problems. No way to know without knowing him personally, of course, but my surmise is that people like him don’t take the dark side of Rand all that seriously. I mean, really, relatively few people seem to. They have a certain built-in level of decency that they assume Rand doesn’t intend for them to violate. I think the people who become objectivists are a definite minority among the admirers of AS.

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  3. grumpy in England

    I didn’t get into the previous discussion about Paul Ryan, Ayn Rand etc – I heartily agreed with the point about this combo being hard on the semi-dyslexic community.
    It is very difficult, for me at least, to avoid all Ayn Randists in principle. I do try, but not at all successfully. For instance, there is one Ayn Rander on the Spectator. But I can never remember which writer it is – is it Fraser Nelson or someone else with a similar name? For a time I tried not reading Fraser Nelson or anyone else with a similar name, but this was too absurd to persist with. Then there is Simon Heffer. He is screamingly funny – and an Ayn Randist. I am afraid that in my case appetite continuously wins out over principle, when it comes to Heffer. The only Ayn Randist whom I have successfully exorcised from my reading habits is Darrell Hannan on the DT. He has a memorable name and is not particularly witty or amusing.
    In short, I find it impossible to take a principled stand on this matter.

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  4. Mac

    I believe screamingly funny would win that contest for me, too. In fact, when I have a chance I will go look for something by Simon Heffer (the name itself is funny, as “heifer” is a common insult in some circles, though applied only to women, like “cow”).
    I don’t really feel obligated to avoid reading Randians in principle, though in my limited experience really devout ones don’t have much of interest to say. Now that I think about it, a funny Randian, while not exactly an oxymoron, would definitely be a rare bird. It’s hard to see someone possessed of a good healthy sense of humor fitting in among objectivists.

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  5. grumpy in england

    the one in the Spectator is either James Forsyth or Nelson Fraser and somehow the names are similar.

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  6. Mac

    Been so busy I haven’t had a chance to look for them yet.

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  7. Grumpy in Scotland

    You can’t really tell. It’s just generic conservativism. That means either that all conservativism is toxic-ayn-rand stuff or that journalists are not all that influenced by the books they say they admire, and which they probably last read in their first year at University.

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  8. Mac

    Or that they read them selectively and/or shallowly.

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  9. grumpy half way between pat and expat

    it’s not worth looking. My comment was factually true but also a joke about purism in regard of randists

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  10. Mac

    I mostly wanted to look for the side-splittingly funny. I never like to miss that.
    I think few people really are or want to be Rand purists, but as soon as they say they’re fans of Atlas Shrugged others assume they’re full-blown objectivists, which creates a lot of confusion. What I meant was that maybe your journalists are of that sort.

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