What the Randians think of me

Over at Rational Passion, a Randian website, commenter Bob Sanders has sized me up. It’s a crude put-down and parody of my ideas, but Sanders does have one not-bad line. After listing some of the things that I think a good society would not approve of, he adds:

The only thing that will be allowed is the occasional Bob Dylan song because after all Auster is still a child of the 60’s.

I call it only “not bad” because my quotations and paraphrases of Dylan have no more to do with my supposed personal identification with the Sixties than my quotations of Yeats have to do with my personal identitification with early 20th century Ireland or my quotes of Shakespeare have to do with my personal identifcation with Elizabethan England. I quote and paraphrase Dylan because lines of his come to mind that are appropriate to the subject at hand and expand on its meaning, in an entertaining way.

Also, one thing I’ve realized from my quotations and paraphrases of Dylan at VFR is that he has become a permanent part of our culture and our language. As with anything that’s great, his lyrics and songs never get old, and are not a mere occasion for nostalgia (of which I have not an ounce), but are always fresh, always new. Yes, he expresses and embodies the Sixties, but he transcends the Sixties.

* * *

And as for my personal view of the Sixties, I will repeat the single truest thing ever said about that period, by the late Sonny Bono: “The Sixties were great, but only musically.”

- end of initial entry -

Robert B. writes:

I read through both the recent post and the one it linked to. All I can say is, who cares what these morons think? Neither one disproves anything you have to say. Neither of them has a counter argument. What I found most interesting, though, was his calling you a racial collectivist—excuse me, but isn’t that what Liberation Theology is? Race based communism? Except that, rather than whites caring for themselves as would be the case if you were to actually be a race collectivist, Liberation Theology is all about whites giving up their collective wealth in favor of the world’s non-whites.

The hell with them, Lawrence, they are not smart enough to look the other when they see leftist propaganda staring them in the face. That’s part of my new theory on Western Meltdown syndrome—that those of us who get what’s going on are simply immune to the constant barrage of propaganda the Left spews forth. This obviously includes the MSM. But, as times get harder, my guess is, is that more people will wake up to reality. Want a job? Then force the government to cut off immigration. Want to be able to afford to eat? Then force the government to deport any immigrants on public subsidies.

LA replies:

Another interesting thing is that these Randians are supposed to be, or at least see themselves as, intellectual types. But they all sound like the dumbest form of kneejerk liberal. All they know how to do is cry “racist” or its equivalent. Which again shows how anti-discrimination, particularly anti-racial discrimination, is the master concept of the modern age, the one supreme conviction held in common by the left, liberals, neocons, mainstream conservatives, grassroots Christian conservatives, Peter Hitchens faux hard line traditional conservatives, libertarians, Randians, liberal Darwinians. The only groups who don’t subscribe to it are the Darwinian anti-Semites, who in addition to being anti-Semites are radical racial reductionists, and traditionalist moral racialists who see race as one dimension, not the only dimension, but not one that can be ignored either, in the order of being.

February 28

John Hagan writes:

Is there a more sniveling group than these so-called Randian supermen? These worthless egalitarian cowards can’t face racial issues like men so they resort to mockery and internet snark. Anytime I post on an internet blog and run into one of these morons I just move along without much comment because interacting with these people is useless. As I have said before: Randians are the ultimate rationalists until race is brought up…..then they crawl away spitting and snarling.

James W. writes:

To chose a person as one’s political philosophy strongly suggests hero-worship and personal limitations.

Not indulging in this guarantees nothing, but what would a list look like that does?

Marxism, Leninism, Mohomets, Benthamites…the list is not looking good. Perhaps Buddha, but there are no fanatical followers and no fanaticism in it.

Great men do not have movements named afer them, because they discover greatness, they do not invent it.

LA replies:

But what about Christianity?

So it all depends on the quality of the person and his teaching. If one is talking about ordinary human beings, then James’s point is well taken.

James W. writes:

“But what about Christians?” occured to me, but it is almost a seperate and more lengthy post.

It is my impression that we can in fact learn many things that sharpen distinctions about Jesus and Christianity by comparing them to a considerable body of hero-worship throughout history. But two words might suffice in understanding these distinctions—humility and grace.

The great and timeless philosophers all tend toward it, inspire great admiration, and no worshipful followers. As it should be.

But we see Rousseau and Marx collect the same egotistical coin that they spend. This is what cautions about Randians. Rand’s message is vastly superior to Rousseau and Marx, but being equally impovershed at its core, leaves adherents on the same train to the hell of lonliness in a world of spirit.

Rand died in the hell of loneliness, tyannizing her worshipers to love her. She had found no grace.

To know how to grow old is the master work of wisdom, and one of the most difficult chapters in the great art of living—Herman Melville

LA writes:

Here are some VFR entries on Ayn Rand

Ayn Rand centennial [Brief summary of value of Atlas Shrugged to me.]

The unprincipled exception as dramatized in Atlas Shrugged [Describing in detail two scenes in Atlas Shrugged.]

Galt versus God [Randian attacks me as mystic for believing in God.]

Neoconservative realizes “moderate” Islam is a fiction [“Conservatism moderates the liberalism, makes it more rational, less destructive, and more acceptable. Conservatism thus performs the same function in relation to liberalism that the industrialist heroes of Atlas Shrugged who have not joined the strike have been performing in relation to the prevailing collectivist system (which they only realize near the climax of the book): they’ve been helping it to work, and thus validating its evil.”]

Bizarro terrorists, brain-dead reporters [What Dagny Taggart says about her railroad company in Atlas Shrugged is true of today’s news business: “There’s not a single mind left at Taggart Transcontinental.”]

David B. writes:

The commenter writes, “If a black, Hispanic, or muslim commits a brutal crime, you can rest assured Auster will jump all over it.” Actually, you mention only a few of these crimes. Space would not permit otherwise. Rather than face reality, they resort to mockery. This was just what my liberal ex-friend Professor F did.

LA replies:

People of correct morality (i.e. liberals, libertarians, Randians, neoconservatives, mainstream conservatives) do not deign to notice the unending series of savage crimes committed by nonwhites, especially those committed against whites. They think that someone who does notice them is immoral. Nothing shows the moral wickedness of liberalism more clearly than than this.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at February 27, 2009 05:41 PM | Send