National Review is at it again wrt Ayn Rand

[Alfonso Jones]

From page 12 of the November 23 issue of National Review:

"NR will review the new biographies of Ayn Rand in due course. We reviewed another Rand-related book once upon a time (“Out of a lifetime of reading, I can recall no other book in which a tone of overriding arrogance was so implacably sustained. Its shrillness is without reprieve. Its dogmatism is without appeal”—Whittaker Chambers on Atlas Shrugged, Dec. 28, 1957). Rand’s abilities as a storyteller are hardly controversial: She still sells hundreds of thousands of copies a year, 52 years later. The financial crisis and the Obama crisis have made her analysis of liberalism and the welfare state timely again. She admired the country she came to as a refugee from Communism. But the most glaring weakness of her thought glares still. A political movement one of whose premises is that theists are stupid and theism wicked is a non- starter in the United States—and would have been with every one of its founders, including Jefferson and Thomas Paine."

Still citing the Chambers review without apology, still adamantly anti-Rand due to her outspoken atheism - and explicitly so.

Bill P

Edited November 6, 2009 by Bill P

[Brant Gaede]

From page 12 of the November 23 issue of National Review:

"NR will review the new biographies of Ayn Rand in due course. We reviewed another Rand-related book once upon a time (“Out of a lifetime of reading, I can recall no other book in which a tone of overriding arrogance was so implacably sustained. Its shrillness is without reprieve. Its dogmatism is without appeal”—Whittaker Chambers on Atlas Shrugged, Dec. 28, 1957). Rand’s abilities as a storyteller are hardly controversial: She still sells hundreds of thousands of copies a year, 52 years later. The financial crisis and the Obama crisis have made her analysis of liberalism and the welfare state timely again. She admired the country she came to as a refugee from Communism. But the most glaring weakness of her thought glares still. A political movement one of whose premises is that theists are stupid and theism wicked is a non- starter in the United States—and would have been with every one of its founders, including Jefferson and Thomas Paine."

Still citing the Chambers review without apology, still adamantly anti-Rand due to her outspoken atheism - and explicitly so.

Bill P

That's funny. Conservative "thought" has been so intellectually enlightening these past 50 plus years--not.

--Brant

[syrakusos]

And yet, you missed this thumbnail review of Anthem from Elle magazine.

I was totally unaware of the National Review piece, but, then, I also was not in the same milieu as this from Slate.

It all depends on what you consider important.

Edited November 6, 2009 by Michael E. Marotta

[Jerry Biggers]

re: the NR comment. (groan) And after I was just saying that we should "make nice" with them.....(sigh) so it looks like they will be dredging up the Chambers mugging.

And it appears they have added a new charge: Rand or other Objectivists have called conservatives who believe in God, "stupid." I don't think Rand ever made that charge. At least, in print. "Ill-informed" or "mistaken," yes. Even, on occasion, "evil" (or, "National Review is the most dangerous magazine in America)."

According to Heller's book, prior to 1957, Rand and Buckley actually had civil conversations with one another. Heller cites a meeting at Rand's apartment where they spent the evening mainly discussing McCarthy and communist subversion. During that time, they might have actually viewed each others as (gasp!) friends! Whatever association there was, came to an abrupt end with the Chambers review of Atlas Shrugged.

I do not believe Buckley's claim that he never read Atlas Shrugged. As editor of the magazine, before he assigned Whittaker Chambers to write the review, it is quite likely that Buckley had at least read part of Rand's novel, and judged it as a threat to his Catholic-based conservatism.

NR is still dominated by Irish and English Catholics. In fact, one of the editors described NR as "a Catholic magazine" (Note: not a "conservative magazine with some Catholic editors." I think this was in their 50th anniversary issue).

Another irony of Chambers writing the attack on A.S., is that (according to Heller) Rand had chosen to offer her novel to Random House because they had also published Whittaker Chambers' book, Witness!

As an aside, several of the original editors (mostly former communists) who were Christian but were not Catholics, had "deathbed conversions" to that faith, in the presence of other NR editors (who probably wanted to save their dying friend from the Hell-that-awaits-all- Protestants-and-other-non-believers). These conversions were usually mentioned in the obituary that appeared later in NR.

NR has had a more cooperative relationship with libertarians (with the exception of Rothbard), but that is because atheism did not play a roll in that persuasion (and most libertarians do not challenge Christian ethics).