Ayn Rand, American Idol

Sales of Ayn Rand's 1957 clunker Atlas Shrugged are off the charts in the US as "Going Galt" is the new rallying cry of the American conservatives. N. Hoffmann writes about this curious phenomenon in the Web portal of the Sueddeutsche Zeitung:

Die in Europa wenig gelesene Autorin, von Noam Chomsky als "eine der bösartigsten Figuren der modernen Geistesgeschichte" bezeichnet, hat in Amerika immer eine solide Anhängerschaft gehabt. Ronald Reagan gehörte zu den Bewunderern ihrer "objektivistischen" Lehre von radikalem Individualismus und Kapitalismus ohne Beschränkungen, genauso wie Alan Greenspan. Doch seitdem selbst dieser für die Nationalisierung von Banken eintritt, hätte man eigentlich annehmen können, Rands Ideen würden etwas schal wirken. Das Gegenteil scheint jedoch der Fall zu sein. (The author (Ayn Rand) is seldom read in Europe and has been described by Noam Chomsky as "one of the most evil figures in modern thought".  But she has always had a solid following in America:  Ronald Reagan was one admirer of her "objectivist" lesson of radical individualism and unrestricted capitalism, as was Alan Greenspan.  But ever since Greenspan came out in favor of nationalizing the banks, one might have suspected that Rand's ideas would have faded. Just the opposite appears to have happened.)

It's true: Atlas Shrugged appeared to have very little resonance in Germany, even though a German edition, Atlas wirft die Welt ab, came out in 1959.  I could not find any reviews of the novel in German, and the book seems to be out of print. A blog devoted to Ayn Rand's teaching - Objektivismus Heute - notes ruefully that sales of Karl Marx's Das Kapital have skyrocketed in Germany during the global economic crisis.  Why won't Germans buy Atlas Shrugged to help understand the crisis and see the solutions?  For one thing, the novel - at nearly 1200 pages - is virtually unreadable.  It is instructive to read the reviews of the novel when it was originally published.  As a New York Times subscriber I have access to the newspaper's archives.  The NYTImes reviewer - Granville Hicks - had the following assessment which rings just as true today as it did in 1957:

"Yet, loudly as Miss Rand proclaims her love of life, it seems clear the book was written out of hate.  How well Miss Rand hates is suggested by the end of Atlas Shrugged....Perhaps most of us have moments when we feel that it might be a good idea if the whole human race, except for us and few nice people we know, were wiped out; but one wonders about a person who sustains such a mood though the writing of 1,138 pages and some fourteen years of work. "

But there is probably another reason why German readers have avoided the writings of Ayn Rand:  why read Rand when one can read Nietzsche?  For what is Ayn Rand other than a vulgar bastardization of Nietzsche?  As one philosopher-blogger put it:

"I've said it before and I'll say it again. If you take the writings of Nietzsche and remove everything insightful, interesting, and funny, what's left are the writings of Ayn Rand. these works are a narcotic to the upper-middle class white male of above average means and intelligence..."

Meanwhile, American conservatives continue down the path of ruin and irrelevancy by "going Galt".

Comments

[hattie]

What I find truly ironic about all this is that these people are now out of power, and a lot of them are also out of money. And the less money they have, the more they scream about the unfairness of it all! Aren't they the best people, before whom the rest of us should bow? Why don't we lesser beings at last learn our place?
Could be she's watered down Nietzsche, but I can't stand Nietzsche either!

[Scott]

Eeek. That's kind of unflattering to Nietzsche. Nietzsche was a great stylist at least.

I enjoyed The Fountainhead when I read it...but Rand was far too self-absorbed and delusional to have any merit as a philosopher.