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What would Ayn Rand think of the MeToo Movement? Everybody knows what the MeToo movement is. It started not too long ago after some high profile celebrity cases of sexual abuse against women resulted in penalties for the accused (except for Bill Clinton, of course). I got to thinking... the rape scene in The Fountainhead has always caused a lot of cognitive dissonance in O-Land, especially Rand's "rape by engraved invitation" quip. I've also been reading Rand's Journals (as part of my fiction writing studies). As I was reading, suddenly I blinked my eyes. I couldn't believe what I just read. Does anyone know what Rand's original image of Dominique Francon was? A priestess... That's right... A priestess... Rand said it several times. But the last time made me think of the MeToo movement. Here are Rand's words for this last time. She is talking about Howard Roark and this quote is in her notes to herself before she wrote the book. Hmmmm... "Were it necessary, he could rape her and feel perfectly justified." He did! He did! "Without great concern for the question of whether she wants it," at that. Well... There we have it, then... I guess Ayn Rand would not have been good material for the MeToo movement. Michael

I was alerted to this review by one of the folks I follow on Twitter, Robert Tracinski: A small excerpt from the offending review with a bit of Rand news that I missed highlighted: -- I am half-convinced that we already noted the Amsterdam theatre group's adaptation in an earlier OL post, but my attempts to find that note are foiled by the search facility, which has gremlins at the moment. [Edit: gremlins vanquished:; the link goes to Michael's note of the earlier sighting ... ]

I present to you a moral thought experiment similarly along the lines of "what if Jesus was black?" If Howard Roark was black: Would he have been able to practice architecture in the first place? Let alone get commissioned work? Would Dominique, his true love, have found him attractive? A potential suitor? How would then then inform his worldview (i.e. ideas on manipulation, work, relations with men etc)? Essentially the whole surrounding society would be effectively acting as a "Ellsworth Toohey" against him, whereas in the story it was just one person. This IMO is profound. My purpose here is you to see past the basic assumptions you make when looking at a character and to see things from different angles to see if it "still works". I'd be interested in the responses to this. Thoughts?

Inviting offers for this First Edition. Contact me at spirit429@aim.com for photos. Victoria Thanks for the critique. Can I post jpegs here?

While at OCON the other day I saw a talk by a programmer named Jason Crawford and he spoke a bit about spreading Objectivism. He has a cool little site that matches students who want to read Ayn Rand's works to people who have been touched by the philosophy and want to donate books to these students. If you have extra books around you want to share or would like to buy books for these students pledging to read them, check out the site at http://freeobjectivistbooks.org/