WALL ST JOURNAL JOINS THE RAND-BASHING

[Jerry Biggers]

(groan...) Not to be outdone by the liberal and MSM, now the Wall Street Journal has published a major article to show that they, too, also hate Ayn Rand, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB20001424052748704402404574525702581182272.html

Because, you see, she has given capitalism a bad name and is responsible for losing millions of possible supporters of the free market by her "in-your-face" arguments.

According to the author(apparently, a conservative of some type) who also misrepresents Rand's arguments (of course!) and misquotes opinions of other libertarians (naturally!), we must only use a softer, gentler, me-too altruistic utilitarian argument to advance capitalism.

Well, we all know how successful those arguments have been. One wonders why Rand's books have sold so many millions if her arguments are so bad, she can't write, and she's just mean to boot?

[Jerry Biggers]

Brian Doherty at reason online has a quick (and excellant) response to the current orgy of Rand-bashing, the relevance of her arguments, and the Wall Street Journal article I mentioned above. See http://reason.com/blog/2009/12/04/the-value-of-ayn-rand-to-the-f

He comes to her defense on a number of very important points, including the probable "unintended consequences" of the current Rand-bashing and the level of the invective used against her (such as in GQ, which he mentions): it will possibly attract a lot more readers to pick up her books - with consequences that may not be so pleasant from the Rand-basher point of vieww: even more adherents to her arguments, rather than less.

I am also delighted that he quotes the choice passage from Nathaniel Branden on the meaning of the type of attacks that have been aimed at Rand (from Who Is Ayn Rand? "The Moral Revolution in Atlas Shrugged," discussed elsewhere in this OL Section.

[9thdoctor]

This one didn’t inspire revulsion, the author snipes, yes on balance the article is negative, but there have been much worse over the last couple months. The mentions of Ralph Lauren and Rick Santelli provide some balance. Here’s the summation:

How are free markets best "sold"? A more compelling approach flips Rand's philosophy on its head, explaining how everyone, especially society's neediest, benefits from economic liberty. It's a compelling story about how freedom and prosperity can change lives for the better. And Ayn Rand is of little help in telling it.

It’s a fair statement coming from an altruist and/or utilitarian. Compare to GQ…actually no thanks, I’m not going to review that pile of dog mess.

I’d reserve the terms “bash” and “smear” for worse than this.

Edited December 5, 2009 by Ninth Doctor

[Selene]

OK

"...an "Atlas" cable miniseries is reportedly in the works."

Have I been in a deep cave looking for objective truth and a world where there are no Xrays?

Adam

[9thdoctor]

Is that the probe droid from the beginning of Empire Strikes Back? It goes by too fast.

Sorry Jerry about the thread drift.

[9thdoctor]

Here's a really nice follow up from John Stossel:

http://stossel.blogs.foxbusiness.com/2009/12/04/1767/

I met him at the '97 DC event (40th anniversary of AS). He said something odd about the free market not being practical, or intuitive...can't remember right now. So many of his specials on ABC were just great.

[Jerry Biggers]

Here's a really nice follow up from John Stossel:

http://stossel.blogs.foxbusiness.com/2009/12/04/1767/

I met him at the '97 DC event (40th anniversary of AS). He said something odd about the free market not being practical, or intuitive...can't remember right now. So many of his specials on ABC were just great.

And here is an article from the Orange County Register about John Stossel and his new program on FOX. It seem that he is planning to do a complete program on ATLAS SHRUGGED and its almost prescient description of where America is going with Obama:

http://www.ocregister.com/entertainment/stossel-222577-says-fox.html

Coming up on Fox....set your VCRs, TiVos, etc., for this program. According to the article, it could be aired next week!

[9thdoctor]

And here is an article from the Orange County Register about John Stossel and his new program on FOX. It seem that he is planning to do a complete program on ATLAS SHRUGGED and its almost prescient description of where America is going with Obama:

http://www.ocregister.com/entertainment/stossel-222577-says-fox.html

I don’t think I get Fox Business, hopefully the show makes it to YouTube and doesn’t get pulled down right away. But Yaron Brook? I hope for the best from him, but Ed Hudgins is better.

[Selene]

Here's a really nice follow up from John Stossel:

http://stossel.blogs...009/12/04/1767/

I met him at the '97 DC event (40th anniversary of AS). He said something odd about the free market not being practical, or intuitive...can't remember right now. So many of his specials on ABC were just great.

Good work 9th:

Yes that is the Viper Probe Droid.

I met Stossel when I coordinated our lobbying for the Presumptive Shared Parenting Bill in Albany. Decent man. I believe that we will get a fair treatment for that level of media. In this climate, he is a gift!

I also met Grandpa Al Lewis in the cafeteria. Hilarious bastard! My partner and I and he grabbed a table and he had us in stitches the whole meal. He was there lobbying for the Seniors in Mitchell Lama Housing. The government was raising the rent.

Adam

[syrakusos]

—Ms. Wilhelm is vice president of marketing and communications at the Illinois Policy Institute, a free-market public-policy organization.

Ms. Wilhelm also might not appreciate the irony in that description of her job.

[Selene]

—Ms. Wilhelm is vice president of marketing and communications at the Illinois Policy Institute, a free-market public-policy organization.

Ms. Wilhelm also might not appreciate the irony in that description of her job.

"[Rand] is a terrible marketer: elitist, cold and laser-focused on the supermen and superwomen of the world."

The self defeating stupidity of that statement is frankly stunning.

She was cold and laser focused. Wolf just posted before that:

"Her great achievement was a splendid definition of two moral principles -- that man must live for his own sake, and that evil requires the sanction of the victim. Utterly brilliant."

I would add possibly one or two more, but I want to read some of Wolf's material which I have not had the time to do. He was very active when I joined and then he got involved in his writing project.

My favorite character in Atlas is Ragnar. I believe that her use of his character and the disruption it creates is an issue that is being address in the other post, so now is the time.

Adam

sharpening weapons

[9thdoctor]

—Ms. Wilhelm is vice president of marketing and communications at the Illinois Policy Institute, a free-market public-policy organization.

Ms. Wilhelm also might not appreciate the irony in that description of her job.

Ironic how? Illinois = Public corruption? The free-market part? She does seem to be pro-free market, though anti-Rand. She could easily be pro-Hayek or Friedman I would think. When I saw her name here was my association:

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name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="

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type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object> Al Lewis, haven't heard that name in quite a while.

[Bryce]

Is Ayn Rand Bad for the Market?

Her ideas are bad for any market whose condition relies on government intervention for improvement.

Edited December 6, 2009 by Bryce

[Jerry Biggers]

And here is an article from the Orange County Register about John Stossel and his new program on FOX. It seem that he is planning to do a complete program on ATLAS SHRUGGED and its almost prescient description of where America is going with Obama:

http://www.ocregister.com/entertainment/stossel-222577-says-fox.html

I don’t think I get Fox Business, hopefully the show makes it to YouTube and doesn’t get pulled down right away. But Yaron Brook? I hope for the best from him, but Ed Hudgins is better.

I wonder why Stossel would chose Yaron Brooke over Ed Hudgins (or David Kelley), given that he (Stossel) spoke at two TAS conferences celebrating the 40th and then the 50th Anniversaries of Atlas Shrugged.

Anyway, it is possible that the Fox Business channel may offer John Stossel's programs on their website(s).

[Jerry Biggers]

I thought I had posted a comment here on a response to the WSJ article from the Cato.org website, but I most have not hit the right button.

Anyway, an economist, Daniel J. Mitchell, has a column where he gives a qualified, lukewarm, support for some points in that article, but then closes with a stronger endorsement for the usefulness and value of Ayn Rand's contributions to the cause of liberty:

As an economist, I certainly don’t pretend to be an expert, but Rand’s philosophy seems vulnerable. And her personal style apparently was less than perfect. But, returning to the main issue, surely Rand has been a net plus for the cause of liberty. I’m not a Randian (and am not even sure what that entails), but I have probably given copies of Atlas Shrugged to about 50 people over the years. Simply stated, the book is a very compelling introduction to the idea that government is corrupt, that it attracts (and benefits) corrupt people, and that redistributionism is a corrupt philosophy.

[Brant Gaede]

Many years ago my Father wrote a mildly positive review of one of my Grandfather's--his father-in-law- books. My Grandfather, Irving Brant, was disappointed; he wanted a screamingly negative review from "the right."

I'm not upset in the least about anything coming out today about Ayn Rand. The more foaming at the mouth the better.

--Brant

[Chris Grieb]

From what I can gather Ms Wilhelm works for a free market think tank concerned with Illinois's issues. A friend of mine from Chicago reports they have just started up. She doesn't know the source of their funding.

They have carried items and studies about Illinois's corruption and high taxes. There are several of these think tanks that deal with states issues.

Edited December 6, 2009 by Chris Grieb

[Jerry Biggers]

Many years ago my Father wrote a mildly positive review of one of my Grandfather's--his father-in-law- books. My Grandfather, Irving Brant, was disappointed; he wanted a screamingly negative review from "the right."

I'm not upset in the least about anything coming out today about Ayn Rand. The more foaming at the mouth the better.

--Brant

I alternate between getting increasingly annoyed by the MSM's hysterical distortions and misrepresentations of Rand's positions - AND becoming encouraged that their hyperbole and overkill will result in major increases in her readership by those curious enough to form their own opinions. That certainly would be "poetic justice."

[Brant Gaede]

Many years ago my Father wrote a mildly positive review of one of my Grandfather's--his father-in-law- books. My Grandfather, Irving Brant, was disappointed; he wanted a screamingly negative review from "the right."

I'm not upset in the least about anything coming out today about Ayn Rand. The more foaming at the mouth the better.

--Brant

I alternate between getting increasingly annoyed by the MSM's hysterical distortions and misrepresentations of Rand's positions - AND becoming encouraged that their hyperbole and overkill will result in major increases in her readership by those curious enough to form their own opinions. That certainly would be "poetic justice."

It's been going on since 1957. There might be an exception--the use of humor. Over 40 years ago I looked up all magazine references to Rand I could find in the Reader's Guide to Periodic Literature and read a lot of them in the big U of AZ library. When I read the New Yorker review of Atlas I kept breaking down in silent convulsions of laughter. I kept telling myself, to no avail, that I shouldn't be reacting that way. The review was not fair, even stupidly ignorant, but the author had a way of taking things out of context leaving them naked to contemporary mores and conceits in defaulted juxtapositions. I'll have to go back and read it again someday to compare how I'd react differently over the years and have a better understanding of the psychology--mine--of it all. I had already read Atlas and have no idea how someone who hadn't might have been affected. I do know such reviews that ignored the importance of ideas and content were designed to tell the (liberal) tribe not to read the novel.

--Brant

Edited December 6, 2009 by Brant Gaede

[Robert Campbell]

I've definitely seen worse than Heather Wilhelm's column.

Brian Doherty's response to the current round of negative commentary about Ayn Rand and her ideas is excellent.

Robert Campbell

[Brant Gaede]

I've definitely seen worse than Heather Wilhelm's column.

Brian Doherty's response to the current round of negative commentary about Ayn Rand and her ideas is excellent.

Yes, Robert, and it closes with the best Nathaniel Branden/Objectivist quote of all time.

--Brant

[Jerry Biggers]

I've definitely seen worse than Heather Wilhelm's column.

Brian Doherty's response to the current round of negative commentary about Ayn Rand and her ideas is excellent.

Yes, Robert, and it closes with the best Nathaniel Branden/Objectivist quote of all time.

--Brant

Indeed, the quintessential rejoinder by Nathaniel Branden to the hyper-critical reviews in the press about Atlas Shrugged and Ayn Rand, as trenchant today as when it was made over 47 years ago:

It is hard to say which is the more eloquent proof of its signal relevance to the crucial issues of our age: the widespread admiration and enthusiasm it has inspired – or the hysteria of the attacks unleashed against it. The nature of those attacks is an instructive index of the current intellectual condition of our culture.

Rand’s antagonists have unfailingly elected to pay her what is, perhaps, the greatest tribute one can offer to a thinker whom one opposes: they have all felt obliged to misrepresent her ideas in order to attack them.

No one has dared publicly to name the essential ideas of Atlas Shrugged and to attempt to refute them. No one has been willing to declare: “Ayn Rand holds that man must choose his own values and actions exclusively by reason, that man has the right to exist for his own sake, that no one has the right to seek values from others by physical force – and I consider such ideas wrong, evil, and socially dangerous.”

Rand’s opponents have found it preferable to debate with strawmen, to equate her philosophy with that of Spencer or Nietzsche or Spinoza or Hobbes and thus expose themselves to the charge of philosophic illiteracy – rather than identify and publicly argue against that for which Rand actually stands.

Were they discussing the ideas of an author whose work was not known to the general public, their motive would appear obvious. But it is a rather grotesque spectacle to witness men seemingly going through the motions of concealing from the public the ideas of an author whose readers number in the millions.

When one considers the careful precision with which Rand defines her terms and presents her ideas, and the painstaking manner in which each concept is concretized and illustrated – one will search in vain for a non-psychiatric explanation of the way in which her philosophy has been reported by antagonists. Allegedly describing her concept of rational self-interest, they report that Ayn Rand extols disregard for the rights of others, brutality, rapacity, doing whatever one feels like doing and general animal self-indulgence. This, evidently, is the only meaning they are able to give to the concept of self-interest. One can only conclude that this is how they conceive their own self-interest, which they altruistically and self-sacrificially renounce. Such a viewpoint tells one a great deal about the man who holds it – but nothing about the philosophy of Rand

(excerpts from pp 38-39, in the The Atlas Society pamphlet; original version, pp 58-59, Who Is Ayn Rand? 1962: Random House).

In comparing the earlier published diatribes of fifty years ago to the current onslaught, the only things that have changed are the increased level of invective, which borders on the hysterical (in both the psychiatric and the vernacular/comic meanings). This level of intensity indicates that either they think that they can deliver a knock-out punch to the Objectivist movement, or that they are truly fearful of the increasing attraction of Rand's message, and the implications that that would have on political and cultural change in America.

[syrakusos]

I am also delighted that he quotes the choice passage from Nathaniel Branden on the meaning of the type of attacks that have been aimed at Rand (from Who Is Ayn Rand? "The Moral Revolution in Atlas Shrugged," discussed elsewhere in this OL Section.

"... Rand's detractors rarely deign "publicly to name the essential ideas of Atlas Shrugged and to attempt to refute them. No one has been willing to declare: 'Ayn Rand holds that man must choose his values and actions exclusively by reason, that man has the right to exist for his own sake, that no one has the right to seek values from others by physical force--and I consider such ideas wrong, evil and socially dangerous."