Ayn Rand and the individualistic cult

Ipsita Baishya

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. -Ayn Rand It is said that a true leader is always ahead of his/her times. Ayn Rand with her fiery intellectual appeal, her radical views and celebration of the individual self above all else fired the popular imagination in a day and age when all this was unheard of. Of course we associate Rand best with her works ‘The Fountainhead’ and `Atlas Shrugged`, the reading staple that our entire generation has grown up on. Perhaps once, many of our hearts were even set aflutter by her architect protagonist Howard Roark. But clearly, that is just for starters for the phenomenon that was Rand. The Randian doctrine Rand's rejection of the moral code that indicts selfishness as the ultimate evil and endorses self-sacrifice as the ultimate virtue is a challenge to conventional wisdom, an approach to a refreshingly novel way to perceive the world. While Rand was not the first philosopher to advocate an ethos of individualism, reason, and self-interest, no one articulated it as vibrantly or ardently as she did. Only an individual of Ayn Rand`s all-exuding aura and dynamism could have so unflinchingly believed in `the virtue of selfishness` not as an abject, abstract proposition but as an intrepid vision of defiance, creative purpose, romantic love and self-expression. Rand went onto propound as profound a philosophy as Objectivism or rational individualism and an entire gamut of ideas expounding her way of life. “Objectivism holds that there is no greater moral goal than achieving happiness. But one cannot achieve happiness by wish or whim. Fundamentally, it requires rational respect for the facts of reality, including the facts about our human nature and needs. Happiness requires that one live by objective principles, including moral integrity and respect for the rights of others. Objectivism is optimistic, holding that the universe is open to human achievement and happiness and that each person has within him the ability to live a rich, fulfilling, independent life”. According to Rand, one's highest value should be one's ability to reason. This also manifested in the way she viewed her own life, not through feelings but through her interest in ideas and her thinking: As she is quoted as having once said:"I do not regard any particular day of my childhood as especially memorable. What I regard as significant are certain trends and intellectual developments in my childhood, but not single days or events.” Such was her pull and magnestism that she can be said to be the high priestess of a whole new religion of individualism with a huge following.In her own words: “The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities”. She was a strong advocate of individual liberty and the free market and openly disavowed socialist ideology. Perhaps as a ratification of her worldview Rand migrated to America from the Communist (and in her own words “repressive”) regime of the Soviet Union, leaving her family behind to move there in 1926.And the land of opportunities provided Rand just the fertile ground and impetus she needed for her freewheeling universe. Politically, Rand wanted to provide liberal capitalism with a moral anchor, to take on the commonplace notion that communism was a noble if unworkable idea while the free market was a necessary evil best suited to flawed human nature. Her impassioned arguments against "compassionate" redistribution--and persecution--of wealth have not lost their urgency and relevance even today. Although Rand denounced the feminist movement, one cannot help but see a strong feminist subtext in her repertoire. All of her heroines are strong-willed, independent women; feminism being all about women asserting their individuality. So it would not be incorrect to assume that Rand by default had a feminist streak to her as many feminists have interpreted. She rejected the Libertarian movement due to her emphasis on epistemology and her rational premise did not allow her to believe in the existence of any Superpower. Personal Life But Rand did not have it all easy. She went through her share of trial and initial struggle. Dislocated from her family, she performed brief stints as a Hollywood screenwriter. There she met her future husband Frank O'Connor, a partnership that lasted for fifty years. As much as she was known for her unapologetic views she was also known for her famous affair with a much younger Nathaniel Branden that later fizzled out. Nevertheless, Branden established an institute to advocate her ideas. Soon its branches had spread all over the US. The Loopholes Rand courted as much controversy during her lifetime as she garnered blind adulation. So while on the one hand her magnum opus `Atlas Shrugged` was deemed as second only to the Bible in a readership survey of twentieth century’s must-reads there were those who write her off as eccentric writer of pulp fiction, her philosophy as sham and gibberish meant for the teen reader. Liberals disagree with her defiant pro-capitalist stance, conservatives with her militant atheism, and conservatives and liberals alike for her individualism. But despite what was largely considered a blinkered worldview and extremist position it is not everyday that a Rand stirs up our mental-scape and impels us to think beyond the ordinary and the possible. She emerged at a time when communism and Nazism held sway, she damned both severely and espoused freedom. In the Randian scheme of things only the individual was supreme and his right to exist for himself; Rand also declared the spiritual dimension of material achievement launching a severe diatribe against collectivism. In the 1950s Rand's Objectivist philosophy was especially popular among college students, who were attracted by her instructions to heed one's self-interest, and to bring out the superman potential without social conscience. Rand published her manifestoes in `The Objectivist Newsletter` in the early 1960s and became a permanent guest on television talk shows. In the 1974 she ceased publishing the Newsletter, but after the collapse of the Soviet Communism her essays gained a new audience in Moscow. Today her books are bestsellers and nothing short of gospel for her admirers. The Ayn Rand institute continues to disseminate her ideas long after she is gone. In 1963, Rand wrote an essay titled "The Goal of My Writing" in which she states the goal of her fiction is to project her vision of an ideal man: not man as he is, but man as he might and ought to be.Nothing could be more pertinent to her life and philosophy.