who is ayn rand?
posted by molly under reading, thinking, this and that | permalink | | leave a comment | 5 comments
I’m working on a project involving Atlas Shrugged. This means I am re-reading Atlas Shrugged. I shan’t be saying a lot about this project here, it’s still in its infancy. I will, however, post a quote from the book that I read today, a quote that filled me with the sort of dread and horror the characters in this book supposedly feel when faced with the moral outrage of, say, charity:
The boy had no inkling of any concept of morality; it had been bred out of him by his college; this had left him an odd frankness, naive and cynical at once, like the innocence of a savage. (AS 342)
I know that’s what college did for me! And it’s certainly what I tried to do when teaching college! Woooooo! Let’s all hear it for savage innocence!
Actually, let’s talk about “savages” for a moment. Who’s a “savage,” according to Rand? Well, Native Americans, for one (all quotes from a lecture at West Point Academy in 1974):
[Native Americans] had no right to a country merely because they were born here and then acted like savages.
Oh?
What were they fighting for, in opposing the white man on this continent? For their wish to continue a primitive existence; for their “right” to keep part of the earth untouched–to keep everybody out so they could live like animals or cavemen. Any European who brought with him an element of civilization had the right to take over this continent, and it’s great that some of them did. The racist Indians today–those who condemn America–do not respect individual rights.
Uh? So what did the whites do, when dealing with these savages living “like animals or cavemen” all over the place?
The white man did not conquer this country. And you’re a racist if you object, because it means you believe that certain men are entitled to something because of their race. You believe that if someone is born in a magnificent country and doesn’t know what to do with it, he still has a property right to it. He does not. Since the Indians did not have the concept of property or property rights–they didn’t have a settled society, they had predominantly nomadic tribal “cultures”–they didn’t have rights to the land, and there was no reason for anyone to grant them rights that they had not conceived of and were not using. It’s wrong to attack a country that respects (or even tries to respect) individual rights. If you do, you’re an aggressor and are morally wrong. But if a “country” does not protect rights–if a group of tribesmen are the slaves of their tribal chief–why should you respect the “rights” that they don’t have or respect?
Holy mother of fuck.
So the question “who is John Galt?” is asked repeatedly in Atlas Shrugged for various reasons; I think a better question is “who is Ayn Rand?” Well, friends, these quotes do a lot to answer that question. This is Ayn Rand.
2:42 pm, 16 March 2010
Just curious, what source did you find for the Rand quotes about Native Americans? All I’ve come across is a citation pointing to Derrick Jensen (of all people), who claims he got it from a librarian who listened to a recording of the West Point lecture. I think Rand is an appalling thinker and a philosophical and literary hack, but I’m not sure if the quotes are genuine.
6:52 pm, 16 March 2010
Heya and welcome! I’m going to be up front here and say that I picked up the quote from here, and it cites Ayn Rand Answers as its source (pgs 102-104). I had a similar book in high school that contained this quote. I recall this, no joke, because when debating the merits of Objectivism with a friend, said friend paged through the book, pointed to the quote, and was like “and. . . this?” It shook me. I am no fan of Jensen, but here he seems to be cross-referencing the same lecture, “Philosophy, Who Needs It?” given at West Point.
If new shit comes to light and someone out there with a copy of Ayn Rand Answers wants to chime in, I’ll be happy to retract the above post! I only used the source because I remembered the exchange I’d had, but if it turns out to be false, I’ll be the first to say yay for Ms. Rand not being thoroughly unpleasant on the subject of native sovereignty.
12:48 am, 17 March 2010
Thanks for the reply.
The quote does definitely appear in Ayn Rand Answers. I just checked using “search inside this book” on Amazon. The book gives no sources other than the year and a desciption of the event the quote is from, and a note that transcripts are available through the Ayn Rand Archives, which is accessible to “serious scholars.” I’m still skeptical, especially since Rand biographer Jennifer Burns has warned against trusting material that claims to be based on content in the archives, but it seems at least plausibly real. A similar sentiment explains why her followers are so strongly in favor of Bush/Obama’s wars, I guess.
6:42 am, 17 March 2010
There are quite a few essays by modern objectivists echoing the sentiment, as well.
5:39 am, 4 April 2010
The interesting thing to me(, he said, weeks later) is that this kind of rhetoric is implicit in much Golden Age science fiction and in fact up until fairly recently. For “recently,” I’m thinking of bits of Heinlein and Clarke, where it’s a moral, species imperative for humanity to expand, or where weaker species are judged less significant than more complex species and eradicated (2010).