Ayn Rand and Paul Ryan

There are a few "housekeeping" items which I'd like to mention up front today.  I've cut the ads down to one (I doubt if there will be any money made from them, but it's fun experimenting with them) and tried to limit them to subjects I think readers may be interested in.  I also have added a display showing how many times this blog was accessed over the past week.  Almost 20% of our readers come from outside of the United States.  I suspect some of this overseas interest is from folks who were doing a search using words like "butterfly farming" and ended up clicking on a listing leading to this blog.   


Here’s the little story which concluded my last posting. 

A prominent architect receives a commission to build a massive public housing project.   When he returns from an extended vacation, he finds that the structure was not built according to his plans, but modified to some extent by other architects involved in the project, so that it was no longer the exact building he had designed.  He was greatly offended by this.  Which of the following courses of action should the architect take? 

1. Because the building would still provide homes which would be a great improvement for families who were presently living in slum-like conditions, accept the changes and move on.
2. Take legal steps to have the unauthorized construction which deviated from his plans removed and reconstruct the building the way it should have been built, even though this would require the government to agree to double the cost of the project.
3. Sneak into the almost completed structure at night and blow it up. 

As at least one of our readers told me, this story is taken from the plot of Ayn Rand’s novel, The Fountainhead.  Yes it is, and if you haven’t read the book nor seen Gary Cooper play the role of Howard Roark in the 1949 filming of Rand’s 1943 novel, he blows up the building!   Howard Roark was a nut job, albeit a “heroic” one in the eyes of Ayn Rand.

                                                          

                                                                           Ayn  Rand

I remind you of this because Congressman Paul Ryan who sponsors the bill which will "save" Medicare by taking it away from those presently under age 55 and replacing it with a far less costly voucher system, is a follower of Ms. Rand’s “philosophy” and requires, I have been told, his staffers to read Rand’s follow-up novel, Atlas Shrugged, all 1170 pages of it.  I admit to reading The Fountainhead but not doing more than a quick scan of Atlas Shrugged, which was just made, incidentally, into a very poorly received movie.  Apparently, Ryan’s staff and their relatives didn’t fill enough seats to make it a box office success.

Rand’s philosophy, Objectivism, seems to exalt the ego and individual accomplishment, from which all success flows.  It puts a premium on selfishness, which narrows and betters one’s focus on success, with no feeling for others (when Roark blew up the building, he didn’t care a bit about those who would be living there) and considers altruistic thoughts as highly undesirable.  You can learn more about Rand’s philosophy, which some have referred to as “upside-down” Marxism, by doing some searching on Google.  It isn’t easy stuff.

As it relates to Congressman Ryan though, let me quote Jonathan Chiat who wrote the following, citing quotes from the Congressman, in the New Republic:

“Ryan would retain some bare-bones subsidies for the poorest, but the overwhelming thrust in every way is to liberate the lucky and successful to enjoy their good fortune without burdening them with any responsibility for the welfare of their fellow citizens.  

This is the core of Ryan's moral philosophy:  ‘The reason I got involved in public service, by and large, if I had to credit one thinker, one person, it would be Ayn Rand,’  Ryan said at a D.C. gathering four years ago honoring the author of  Atlas Shrugged  and The Fountainhead.

At the Rand celebration he spoke at in 2005, Ryan invoked the central theme of Rand's writings when he told his audience that, ‘Almost every fight we are involved in here on Capitol Hill ... is a fight that usually comes down to one conflict--individualism versus collectivism.’

The core of the Randian worldview, as absorbed by the modern GOP, is a belief that the natural market distribution of income is inherently moral, and the central struggle of politics is to free the successful from having the fruits of their superiority redistributed by looters and moochers.”   

                                       

                                                              Paul Ryan

If I may burden you with one more bit of what Ayn Rand is all about, here is a quote from Atlas Shrugged:

“John Galt is Prometheus who changed his mind. After centuries of being torn by vultures in payment for having brought to men the fire of the gods, he broke his chains—and he withdrew his fire—until the day when men withdraw their vultures.”

Now, since I haven’t more than scanned the book, I resorted to Sparknotes.com, where I found the following explanation of this quote (Italics are mine):

“Francisco says this to Dagny in Part Two, Chapter V, after they discover the words ‘Who is John Galt?’ scratched into a table at a restaurant.  She says there are so many stories about him, and Francisco tells her that all the stories are true. Metaphorically speaking, they are, and Francisco’s Prometheus story is especially apt. Prometheus was a figure from Greek mythology. He was a titan who stole fire from the gods and brought it to men to improve their lives. In return, he was chained to a rock and tortured. Vultures ate his liver each day, only to have it grow back at night to be eaten again. In Francisco’s comment, Prometheus (personified by Galt) represents the great industrialists who have provided men with prosperity and improved their lives with their inventions and products, but have received only condemnation and government interference in return. These men, led by Galt, have disappeared and taken their prosperity-generating minds (the ‘fire’ they had provided) with them. They will no longer allow themselves to receive torture as payment for their talents, and they will only return their talents to the world when they are no longer punished for bringing them.

                                                                       Prometheus 

Enough?  Now you know why Howard Roark blew up the housing project, and why Paul Ryan wants to blow up Medicare ... and anything else the government does to interfere with “the great industrialists who have provided men with prosperity and improved their lives with their inventions and products but have received only condemnation and government interference in return.” 

That includes tax increases for the wealthy which is what this really is all about.

(A footnote to the "Paul Ryan - Ayn Rand" tale is the opposition which has developed to Ryan and his ideas by clergy throughout the country, who object to Rand's atheism. This has created a problem for "social conservatives," who have difficulty with a philosophy which values selfishness over altruism, and which apparently has greatly influenced the GOP's point man for health care reform .) 

Jack Lippman