Jeyamohan on Ayn Rand - 1: A Struggle to Understand

Jeyamohan is very capable of stirring new controversies, but, for reasons unknown, he recently re-published those Ayn Rand blogs and as far as I can say, with no changes or fresh insights. Nearly 5 years back I came across Jeyamohan's blog when he wrote a series on Ayn Rand, my most favorite writer. Not knowing anything of Jeyamohan at that time I wrote an ill constructed and intemperate email pointing out some errors. Using the intemperate parts he deftly, with little effort, brushed aside the valid objections with ridicule. Using the occasion of a new round I'll make amends to what I failed to do in 2009.

Disagreeing with Rand is Jeyamohan's liberty. What is at issue is whether he understands correctly and then disagrees. Jeyamohan's blogs on Rand are littered liberally with misunderstandings, misinterpretations and some slander too. Since I am often charged with negativity I shall, for once, try to first outline what are valid interpretations of Ayn Rand though I disagree with his critique.

Jeyamohan proudly declared that he has read nothing by Ayn Rand except 'Fountainhead'. Ayn Rand was a writer who matured slowly over two decades reaching her intellectual apogee in 'Atlas Shrugged' from the grotesquely Nietzchean and autobiographical 'We the living'. Jeyamohan snidely refers to Ayn Rand as one who 'ran away' from Russia. What Jeyamohan intends as an insult, albeit a fact, Ayn Rand would wear on her sleeve with pride saying 'I chose to be an American'.

Ayn Rand has always been ridiculed by literary establishment of America. No list of great books to read in a lifetime will ever include her books. She did not win any literary prize. American academia always chuckled at students who mentioned her books just as Jeyamohan does. Yet, more than 50 years since she published her books they continue to sell by the tens of thousands every year.

Even those who loved her ideas and books were quick to identify that her characters were like cardboard. Howard Roark, John Galt. Ellsworth Toohey, Peter Keating were all vehicles for her ideas and little else. Jeyamohan is absolutely correct in saying that none of her characters were lifelike. In fact my father used to say that her heroes and heroines will be invested with heroic qualities, even look beautiful, athletic and fiendishly focused on their ambitious goals whereas her villains were ugly looking and with no redeeming quality whatsoever.

Rand, ironically, modeled her characters after famous living personalities. Howard Roark was inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright (Jeyamohan never got that correct, he claimed Roark was modeled 'probably' after Wittgenstein), Toohey resembled left wing academic Harold Laski, Gail Wynand resembled newspaper baron William Randolph Hearst, Robert Stadtler in Atlas Shrugged was drawn from physicist Robert Oppenheimer. Interestingly Rand denied Roark was Frank Lloyd Wright and Wright himself indignantly said 'I deny the paternity and refuse to marry the mother'. Rand took those living beings, bored into what she considered their towering core, as in the case of Wright, or their fatal flaws, as in the case of Laski, and proceeded to invest her characters with nothing else. Though Rand claimed that the fact her books were published were 'proof enough that men like that existed' this unidimensional characterization made it easy for detractors and admirers alike to say "well, such men are unreal and therefore living like them is impossible".

The intellectual climate in which Ayn Rand wrote those books is unfathomable today. Bernard Shaw and Walter Duranty denied the horrors of Stalinism. In FDR's America the New Deal was passed with help of racist Democrats and as a price segregation was institutionalized. Woodrow Wilson would watch racist pictures in the White House. Isaac Deutscher was keen in unmasking Stalin while whitewashing Trostsky. Rand sought to strip away the nuances and masks to show the unvarnished core of people.

Jeyamohan adroitly zeroes in on Rand's central theme of absolute rejection of religious or communist idea of negation of the self in favor of absolute realization of the self as the only path to happiness. Rand considered the striving for such a happiness as the only reason for existence.

'Fountainhead' was published in 1943 when Che Guevara was a 15 year old and he would not become  known for another 13 years until the 1956 Cuban revolution. Jeyamohan, in his role as arbiter of literature, suggests that Rand should've considered Che, whom he considers as the paragon of selfless sacrifice, as the ideological antipode if she really aspired to write a book of literary quality. Unbeknownst to him Jeyamohan offers an example in Che who proved that Rand was brilliantly prophetic. Rand's theory that a man willing to sacrifice his 'self' will more than willingly sacrifice others for his ideas was proved by Che's ruthlessness and blood lust in killing those he considered enemies. Che was known to organize summary executions after kangaroo trials in the forests. Che Guevara and Castro liberated Cuba from a murderous regime only to institute their own totalitarian and equally murderous regime enslaving a people for 6 decades.

William F. Buckley Jr, the intellectual godfather of the then nascent religion based conservatism in America, is joined at the hip with Jeyamohan in his fear of a doctrine of individualism that preached happiness as realizing one's self and nothing beyond. Buckley and Jeyamohan are aghast that a man should be happy in himself to the negation of others. To both individualism not circumscribed by, what they considered, as a superior purpose in life, a higher calling from beyond, is recipe for sowing the seeds of a tyrannical mindset.

Very tellingly Jeyamohan says that man who rises above boundaries of nationalism and other defining 'isms' should do so only as part of an aspiration of mystical renunciation from worldly bindings. Buckley ripped into John Lennon's utopian song 'Imagine', which waxes eloquent about an utopian society in which 'there's no country, nothing to kill or die for, and no religion too', for what he saw as naive nihilism.

I, for one, side with Ayn Rand but it is not my purpose to convince others of such an idea in this blog. Suffice it to say in Rand's view and her portrayal a man who values his 'self' will never seek to undermine the 'self' of another.

One of the main debates,indeed the most important, of the 2008 Presidential election in US was about how much credit does an individual deserve in his achievements and how much credit can a society take in providing the environment that made success possible. Jeyamohan bristles at credit being given, wholesale, to Roark for his revolutionary ideas on architecture. Roark, Jeyamohan contends, arrives at his new ideas, like Newton, standing on the shoulders of giants and if that is the case can Roark claim anything special for himself on account of his ideas?

It is classic Marxist objection to deny any 'special' role for an individual. Nobody is inevitable. Sure, Newton and Einstein 'stood on the shoulders of giants' and owed their predecessors much for their earth changing theories. In fact in science it is rare to see the individual researcher instead we see corporatized research in teams. Rand would point out in Fountainhead that even in a committee each must bring to the table their own mind and without it there would be nothing to arrive at a consensus for or against. The primacy of an individual thinking on his own is inviolate. 'Cogito ergo sum'.

It is possible that another Newton or Einstein might have indeed come up with those theories and humanity may still have progressed. But, to deny their achievements, to deny an individual his/her place in history is a slippery slope that inexorably slides towards a society of animals.

If George  Washington had been Napoleon would America have happened? If Nehru had been Stalin would India be what it is today (India in 1947 had every reason to become like 1930s USSR)? How does a tongue tied unsuccessful lawyer find his voice as a destiny maker in a South African train platform?

To be sure many other countries would've their own Steve Jobs and Bill Gates and Rockefeller but it is in America that they became titans and changed the course of human history. A French analyst once said that a Steve Jobs will never happen in France for only in America is such a story possible. By the same token, thousands others went to the same schools and colleges as Jobs and Gates and yet they were all unexceptional. These are tough questions to resolve.

For a woman who wrote about the sanctity of the individual Ayn Rand encouraged and luxuriated in a notorious group of admirers who called themselves, alas, 'the collective'. Jeyamohan is right in pointing out towards the end of her life Ayn Rand had withdrawn into a cocoon of uncritical and adulatory readers who lost their sense of individualism. Rand was so tyrannical that whoever she considered irrational, for instance Brahms, should be shunned by everyone in the collective. Anyone who dared to enjoy Brahms would invite scorn and even a stern lecture. Rand was Stalin to her collective. Interestingly I've seen Jeyamohan's own fan club shows similar blind worship. I even received a racist tweet from one of his popular defenders. Later, ashamed of it, the reader deleted it.

As Jeyamohan says Ayn Rand's affair with Nathaniel Branden was disastrous and in fact undercuts her preaching of 'rationality'. Unlike what he says, though, the affair was not done in secret. Ayn Rand called her husband and Branden's wife to a meeting and corralled everyone into agreeing to it. In fact its the openness and the rationalization that makes it even more grotesque than if it had been a secret. I am always loathe to dismiss ideas solely because their proponents themselves might live a life that contradicts it or falls short. An idea must be defeated on its own demerits.

Ayn Rand did not die in a disillusioned manner or any such thing. In fact Rand bounced back from the disastrous affair and continued to address universities and sold out shows. Tens of millions watched her debate on TV. On the contrary it is Gandhi who died disillusioned. Asked what can Jews do against an enemy like Hitler Gandhi suggested 'mass suicide'. Gandhi counseled the British to give up their island to Hitler. Thankfully Churchill did not listen to Gandhi. What is worse, independent India unified the country with military help when the British sought to Balkanize the country.

Other than the few observations above Jeyamohan completely misstates and misunderstands Ayn Rand. He devoted an entire blog to show that Rand's choice of architecture as the profession of the hero was to signify her hero's inflexible dogmatic attitude. He then drew tenuous connection to Hitler's love of architecture in an attempt to discredit Rand's hero as a subliminal Hitler. Rand's heroic characters in 'Atlas Shrugged' dealt with molten metals and locomotives. In Rand's 'Fountainhead' unlike CN tower or Raja Raja Chola's belittling gargantuan temple the skyscrapers have a purpose. Roark's buildings are for people to live and function. I've been on top of CN tower and have wondered at the absolute worthlessness of such a building. I'd never say that of Empire State Building or World Trade Center. In fact Rand would've frowned on the new World Trade Center architects arguing for the title of the tallest building based on height that includes the lighting conductor atop the building. Rand would've argued that a building which climbs to 1776 feet just for arrogance is a sham. It is here that Jeyamohan failed to understand the central theme of 'Fountainhead' architect. And thats only one of many other failures as we shall see in coming blogs.


References:
1.விதிசமைப்பவர்கள் http://www.jeyamohan.in/?p=14305 (has links to other Ayn Rand blogs by Jemo)
2. My email to Jeyamohan in 2009 http://www.jeyamohan.in/?p=3464
3. Che Guevara http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Che_Guevara
4. John Lennon's 'Imagine' http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/johnlennon/imagine.html

Why Ayn Rand Still Matters and Still Irritates

What unites Allan Bloom, Alexander Cockburn, Gore Vidal, Jeyamohan and Ka.Na.Subramaniam? An unmitigated contempt of Ayn Rand, her philosophy and a puzzlement over why she enthralls millions across generations.

Angered by how the idea of 'relativism' was spreading across the academia Allan Bloom burst forth in 'Closing of the American mind'. Bloom is scandalized by the idea that students, out of political correctness, would ask "who am I to judge?" In the chapter 'Books' he narrates how he used to ask every new student about books that influenced them. Snidely he says 'every now and then a girl student would cite Ayn Rand'. Gore Vidal wrote "this odd little woman is attempting to give moral sanction to greed and selfishness". Jeyamohan wrote a series of blogs laced with slander, misunderstandings and indignation about Ayn Rand the writer and philosopher. He hated both the parts equally vehemently.

A poll quoted by two recent and acclaimed biographies said that Americans had cited her writings as most influential after the Bible. Ted Turner, founder of CNN, read Atlas Shrugged and erected 200 billboards throughout US asking "who is John Galt". She addressed throngs of students in overflowing auditoriums across universities where the professors taught their students to despise her. Her appearance, twice in a year, in the Johnny Carson show drew 50 million. Her last public address was in April 1981 at the Ford hall where, Anne Heller writes, she railed against 'creationism', 'family values' and other bogies of the Reagan revolution. She died less than a year in March 1982, sound of mind, unlike what Jeyamohan and rumor mongers have always insisted.

                                                          (From Wikipedia)

Ayn Rand and Arthur Koestler were both born in 1905 in worlds apart. Rand and Koestler were both born into wealth. Both of their parents lost their wealth in the aftermath of the First World War. Rand's father's business was confiscated and they were refugees in the country they were born into. Koestler's father lost his wealth but was not pauperized or exiled. Boris Pasternak would create a scene in his book where Dr Zhivago comes to his palatial home only to see it occupied by peasants who indignantly  ask "why do you need such a big home". That was reality to Rand.

Koestler wrote 'Darkness at noon', a book that laid bare the monstrosity of Soviet state, in 1940. Orwell followed with his classic 'Animal farm' in 1945. Later Arthur Koestler, Louis Fischer, Stephen Spender, Andre Gide and others wrote a collection of essays that was published as 'The God that failed' in 1949about their disillusionment with Soviet Russia, not necessarily communism itself or of Marxist ideals. Koestler would narrate how he got drawn into communism. Guilt. Guilty of his riches while many suffered around him. But it was Ayn Rand who published her first major novel 'We the living' in 1936. It was path breaking as a work of fiction in that it was stridently anti-communist, not just anti-Soviet.

To understand a writer one has to travel to the socio-political climate of the era in which the writer lived. Ayn Rand's first major novel 'We the living' was stridently anti-Communist. Published in 1936 it went against not just the grain but a wall of public opinion. Crawling out of the great depression US was a fertile breeding ground for communists and communist sympathizers. The intellectuals were in the van guard of the pink thirties. It was also the era of FDR when liberalism was triumphant. A conservative, let alone, an anti-Communist was a pariah in those days.

Ayn Rand went where not even Orwell could bring himself to go. Orwell remained a socialist. Many who were disillusioned by communism were more disillusioned by Soviet Russia than of communism itself. Till today only Ayn Rand connected the dots from Marxism to USSR. Only Rand insisted that totalitarianism is inherent to the Marxist philosophy and not an accidental aberration. Tina Rosenberg, a left sympathizer, in her 1995 Pulitzer and National Book Award winning book "The Haunted Land" underscores that, almost without fail, communist countries have been totalitarian and hesitatingly adds maybe there is more than a coincidence.

Koestler details in 'God that failed' how communists would target the mind first and thereafter always. Truth was malleable. Facts were discarded as 'mechanistic'. It is against this totalitarian vision that Ayn Rand rebelled and burst forth in a paean to individualism in 'Fountainhead'.

To understand Howard Roark we have to learn about how only in America 'construction' became a national avocation to shape a destiny. Transcontinental railroad, Empire State building, the skyscrapers of New York, the bridges of New York City, the New York subway were all engineering marvels unprecedented in human history. The Mayan temples, Angkor Wat, CN tower in Canada etc are all nothing compared to the Empire State Building of NYC. It is one thing to construct an observatory tower at hundreds of feet or a pile of rocks to a deity but it is another to construct a living space where thousands have to live and work. Just the disposal of trash from a skyscraper is a science. The Empire State Building was possible because of new techniques in building that newer materials made possible and thats why it could be built taller than the Woolworth building. The ESB is not a building of vanity to boast of just height, its not built to make man feel small. ESB has a function and the form follows the function.

Ayn Rand modeled Roark after the famous architect Frank Lloyd Wright. But Roark, as any fictional character should be, is more than Wright. Later both Wright and Rand denied Roark was modeled after Wright. The character of the second hander, Peter Keating, was inspired by a chance encounter of Ayn Rand. Rand asked a woman, by chance, what she desires in life. The woman answered in terms of everything people around her had. A second hander. A moocher. Ellsworth Toohey was modeled on the smooth talking leftist intellectual Harold Laski.

The 'individual' was a recent idea. Across civilizations man lived in 'relation' to others until recent times. Stephen Greeenblatt in his Pulitzer and Nationall Book AWard winning 'Swerve' writes compellingly on 15th century Europe "The household, the kinship network, the guild, the corporation-these were the building blocks of personhood. Independence and self reliance had no cultural purchase; indeed, they could be scarcely conceived, let alone prized. Identity came with a precise, well understood place in a chain of command and obedience".

To Ayn Rand and her readers like me there is only one form of government that is compatible with individualism, liberal democracy. There is only one economic system that makes democracy what it is: Capitalism. Choosing rulers, choosing how we live and choosing how we earn, what we earn are all an inseparable whole.

Krushchev taunted Eisenhower that for all the prosperity of the western economic system it is nothing but a system that caters to man's selfishness. Eisenhower told his aides that he was left speechless to counter that. Ayn Rand was livid. To her and me capitalism is a moral good that is to be pursued not just because it tames man's vices best but because it is the only proper expression of all that man is.

It took a nineteenth century American businessman, Henry Ford, to say "make money and be happy. Make more money and be happier". Liberal economist and thinker A.O.Hirschman in "The passions and the interests:Political argument for capitalism before its triumph" quotes sociologist Max Weber "now, how could an activity, which was at best ethically tolerated, turn into a calling in the sense of Benjamin Franklin?" The activity that Weber referred to was 'making money'. Naturally Ayn Rand wrote that only in America was the phrase 'to make money' was invented.

When American economy crumbled in 2008 Ayn Rand was unfairly tarnished. The greed of Wall Street CEO's is not what she wrote or epitomized. Rand's heroes and heroine 'created' and put their wealth at stake to prove their vision was correct. Her heroes did not have golden parachutes. Hank Rearden and Dagny Taggart not only pledge their wealth in pursuit of their dream they also place their own lives at stake when they ride the first train over a bridge made of Rearden steel.

A factory in 'Atlas Shrugged' puts into practice Marx's maxim 'from each according to his ability to each according to his need'. The factory goes bust and a participant from that dream project narrates the story to Dagny Taggart. It was not parody. Robert Owen is credited with coining the word 'socialism' and he carried out a similar experiment, in reality, where else but America, in 1825. Four decades before Marx's tract 'communist manifesto' was published. It was utter disaster.

V.P.Singh exulted when a boy enrolled in the prestigious AIIMS under the Mandal scheme. Later when Singh was diagnosed with leukemia he promptly came to USA. It is this 'altruism' that Rand deplored and instead spoke of the 'virtue of selfishness'. In her definition selfishness is NOT grabbing what is not one's but being true to one's own self. One's own conviction and independence. In a way I can say every freedom fighter, including Gandhi, was fighting for their own independence first. It was not altruism. Refusal to cooperate with a colonizer, however materially rewarding it maybe, is a perfectly Randian thing to do. Being rewarded materially by cooperating with totalitarianism is the kind of money making that would not give one joy about being rich.

Rand was not against charity but she did not consider, rightly, charity a pre-requisite to be called 'good'. Corporate Social Responsibility is the greatest modern con. A corporation owes only one thing and that is profits to its investors. It is unto investors, as individuals, to be charitable if the choose to be charitable. Take away the charity related tax deduction in USA and lets see US philanthropy plummet. Charity is not free.

When Barack Obama and Elizabeth Warren rail that an individual owes his or her success to the community then one is reminded of Ayn Rand. This is why she still matters to people like me and this is why, nearly 60 years since its publication, 'Atlas Shrugged' still irritates many others.

Exxon Mobil the oil giant was kicked out of Venezuela by communist firebrand Hugo Chavez, a brainless thug. Exxon then deftly maneuvered in court to have all the money, in an escrow account, that Chavez was eyeing, to be frozen. The story is narrated with racy details in Steve Coll's 'Private Empire'. One cannot but think of Ellis Wyatt in 'Atlas Shrugged', who, when his oil fields are nationalized, torches them all leaving behind a note "you asked for it". Yes Exxon had the Valdez oil spill disaster. But they learned. Later Exxon, Steve Coll writes, made a fetish out of safety and safety procedures with absolute zero tolerance for negligence. After Chavez's thugs took over the oil fields of Exxon all safety notices were ripped off. Accidents in Chavez's state owned refineries spiked and production tanked. Thank you Ayn Rand.

Milton Friedman and Friedrich Hayek became the apostles of capitalism and won Nobel prizes. In Friedman's lectures and books capitalism is presented as the most pragmatic choice that delivers effectively as an economic system. To Ayn Rand capitalism was a moral good because man, to be true to his self, has to be capitalist.

To E.O.Wilson man is biologically altruist because lower organisms show altruism. Richard Dawkins's 'Selfish gene' was promoted by the right wing to say that man was selfish because its in his genes. Ayn Rand would have violently disagreed with both and with biological determinism as an idea because man is not just a sum total of biology. Man has a mind. Man exercises volitional choice. Choice means living with consequences too. It is insulting  to reduce man to his biology.

Warren Buffet was Barack Obama's bogeyman in arguing for the rich to be taxed more. In a telling oped in NYT he wrote that it is sham propaganda that when the rich are taxed more they will reduce their investments in order to reduce their tax bill. He correctly argued that nobody refrains from doing what they do best, including choosing investments that will give high yields, just to reduce a tax bill. But therein lies the rub. He expects Atlas to carry the world with blood streaking on his face. Giving the intellectual clarity to spot Orren Boyle's of the world is why I am thankful to Ayn Rand and 'Atllas Shrugged'.

Ayn Rand asked Oppenheimer, whom she held in regard, if she can say that the Atom Bomb was invented in America because its a free country unlike USSR and Germany. Oppenheimer agreed. There is lot of truth to this profound observation. The USSR beat US on every space mission in the space race but eventually fell behind and finally became a technological dinosaur simply because there was no freedom in USSR. It is true of China today. China may overtake US on GDP but it will never overtake US on per capita income and more importantly on innovation. China can be called Ayn Rand's laboratory. In China one is free to make money but one is not free to speak or think freely. Can it produce Nobel Laureates? Can China produce a Steve Jobs even? China will only be Jobs's factory but never produce its own Jobs. David Hoffman in his Pulitzer winning 'Dead Hand: The cold war and the arms race" narrates an interesting incident. When Gorbachev visited Canada a Russian diplomat showed him an Apple computer and this is a wonder of the world. A French analyst wrote in Washington Post that France can never produce a Steve Jobs.

The Silicon Valley is a distinct American creation that is impossible in any other country on earth. Rockefeller, Carnegie, Zuckerman, Gates, Jobs, J.P.Morgan are all American creations. Only in America is their story possible. One cannot appreciate Steve Jobs without understanding Ayn Rand.

George Orwell wanted salary caps for CEO's. In East Germany a chemistry professor and a brick layer earned almost same. No wonder they could not produce a single chemical worth talking about. Elizabeth Warren who taught part time in Harvard had a take home pay of $300,000. Yes. I wish she thanked capitalism.

For all her love and preaching of capitalism Ayn Rand was hated and loathed by the nascent conservative movement led by William Buckley. Rand's atheism and strident individualism were the chief turn offs. Rand supported abortion because a fetus, a cellular organism with no brain, is not an 'individual'. Rand joined Barry Goldwater in opposing the civil rights bill, though both loathed segregation, because they saw it as a power grab by the federal government. Goldwater ran desegregated offices in his business even before the bill. Buckley had one time communist spy and now reformed republican Whittaker Chambers eviscerate 'Atlas Shrugged' in his magazine.

So what of her philosophy itself? What about 'objectivism'? Do readers hold on to 'Galt's speech', that runs into 60 pages which she wrote over 2 years, as gospel? Her books sell by the hundreds of thousands every year. A large majority take only vignettes from her book as lessons for life. Nobody lives according to every word in the bible much less according to Rand's book. The power of her fiction lies in the fact that it leaves behind images that people can relate to in everyday life. Obama, Warren, Chavez, Exxon, Jamie Dimon, Ted Turner, Steve Jobs bring to mind images of her characters and the situations etc. It is silly to think, as Jeyamohan does, that Ayn Rand readers are mentally sick like her. Neither are true. As much as reading Gita or Bible does not make every reader a saint so also reading Ayn Rand does not make every reader go about thinking they are John Galt.

Did Ayn Rand live like she preached? If she failed what does it say of her philosophy itself?  What is her place in the history of ideas? I'll weave those answers in my rebuttal to Jeyamohan.


References:

1. Goddess of the market: Ayn Rand and the American right -- Jennifer Burns.
2. Ayn Rand and the world she made -- Anne C Heller
3. The God that failed - Edited by Richard Crossman. Essays by Arthur Koestler, Stephen Spender, Louis Fischer, Andre Gide.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_God_that_Failed
4. Gore Vidal on Ayn Rand - http://www.gorevidalnow.com/2011/06/gore-vidal-on-ayn-rand-in-1961-she-has-a-great-attraction-for-simple-people/

5. Alexander Cockburn on Ayn Rand "He banged away relentlessly against what he called “the criminal tendencies of the executive class,” writing in 2002: “The finest schools in America produced a criminal elite that stole the store in less than a decade. Was it all the fault of Ayn Rand, of Carter and Kennedy, of the Chicago School, of Hollywood, of God’s demise? You’d think there’s at least a Time cover in it.”  --- http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/13/books/a-colossal-wreck-is-alexander-cockburns-take-on-america.html?ref=books&_r=0

6. Closing of the American mind -- Allan Bloom http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Closing_of_the_American_Mind

7. Darkness at noon -- Arthur Koestler http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darkness_at_Noon

Ryan and Rand Vs Obama and Wright

Ever since Mitt Romney chose Wisconsin congressman Paul Ryan to be his running mate op-ed writers, bloggers and talking heads are all abuzz with talk of Ayn Rand. Paul Ryan had said in the past that Ayn Rand was his greatest inspiration to come to public life. Ryan gives Rand's tome 'Atlas Shrugged' as Christmas gifts to staffers and others.

Paul Krugman the unofficial town hall crier of the democratic party declared in his column "Galt, Gold and God", "what does it say about the party when its intellectual leader evidently gets his ideas largely from deeply unrealistic fantasy novel?". Another blogger seized on the fact that Ayn Rand, according to Jennifer Burns's biography 'The Goddess of the market: Ayn Rand and the American right", expressed admiration for a grisly serial killer and wrote a column titled, yes, titled "Paul Ryan's guru Ayn Rand worshipped a serial killer who kidnapped and dismembered little girls". Jennifer Burns herself took  to op-eds to ask if Ayn Rand, who disapproved Ronald Reagan, would approve Paul Ryan. Burns wrote two op-eds.

Paul Ryan told an interviewer that for all his love for Ayn Rand her militant atheism is not something he agrees. Ryan's another mentor is Friedrich Hayek. Hayek, Nobel laureate in economics, is revered for his polemical book that argued about the evils of socialist/communist model of economics in 'The Road to Serfdom'. Hayek nevertheless had voiced support for a government run health care program. An idea that Ryan and Romney now oppose. Another columnist pulled up Ryan for 'cherry picking' ideas from Rand and Hayek.

Liberals and the Press would have drooled 'intellectual' if Obama talked about philosophers and economists so passionately. They drool so even when he does not talk serious ideas and offers his 'Robinhood' as a choice against what he calls 'Romneyhood'.

Ayn Rand did indeed express some admiration for a serial killer from the perspective of a man who defies society's mores. As repugnant as it may seem let us not forget that Truman Capote's 'In cold blood' is considered a classic despite the fact that Capote did indeed almost admire two very gruesome murderers. Jennifer Burns does trace how Rand obsessed with Nietzchean idea of 'super human' did fashion her heroes mostly as anti-heroes first and only then progressed to stylizing her heroes as defying society in a positive way.

No human being ever picks up a book and accepts all that is said, even for the Bible. If Ryan as a Catholic said he believed the Book of Genesis these same liberals would chortle. We all read and love many books. We imbibe cherry picked ideas to create the most complex phenomenon in the world, our own composite identities. Ayn Rand hated Friedrich Hayek exactly for Hayek's concession that government could still have some legitimate role. If Krugman thinks 'Atlas Shrugged' is just fantasy he needs to take some classes in literary appreciation. Maybe his employer, Princeton University, will give him a discount to attend its humanities courses.

Jennifer Burns's biography details the strife between Ayn Rand and the intellectual vanguard of the right, particularly its rising intellectual lodestar William F. Buckley Jr. The conservatives ridiculed Rand for her atheism and for idolizing strident unbridled individualism. Liberals scorn conservatives use of religion as a yoke for their ideas. It is a topic for another blog. We all read great works of literature without agreeing with all of the ideas or the personal ideologies of the author. Tolstoy was a philanderer. Does it mean that we condone or look to emulate that part of Tolstoy when we lose our hearts in his immortal works?

Compare all this brouhaha to how quickly the media and opinion makers were eager to pass over discussion of Obama being influenced by Jeremiah Wright.

After a month of unbroken string of crushing victories as the 2008 primaries ground towards three big states PA, OH and TX. ABC broke news about Obama's pastor Jeremiah Wright's incendiary sermons. The week after 9/11, Wright, in elaborate embroidered dress, thundered "America's chickens have come home to roost". In another sermon he intoned at high pitch "no, no, no. Not God bless America but God damn America and that's in the Bible".

America was stunned. Obama campaign went into a tail spin. Hillary archly said "if he had been my pastor I'd have changed my church". The news was not broken by Fox News and hence even Obama loving liberal media had to sit back and take notice. Questions of 'does Obama share these views' dominated the airwaves. Obama the orator rode to the rescue of his own candidacy. Obama's belief that he could mesmerize audiences and make them suspend logic proved, by hind sight, a great prophetic gamble that paid off handsomely.

Obama confessed that Rev. Wright used to speak critically of USA in his sermons while Obama sat in the pews for two decades. Rev. Wright presided presided Obama's marriage and baptized his children. Obama nevertheless added that these remarks, now looped on national TV, were 'incendiary'. The remarks, Obama said in his landmark address, had "the potential not only to widen the racial divide, but view that denigrate both the greatness and the goodness of our nation; that rightly offend white and black alike". He then went on to say that this was not all there was to Rev. Wright and why he can no more abandon his pastor than he could abandon his white grandmother who raised him but was prone to racial stereotyping. Obama gave a carte-blanche good conduct certificate to Rev.Wright, "not once in my conversations with him have I heard him talk about any ethnic group in derogatory terms".

More of Rev. Wright's sermons tumbled out. Rev. Wright himself chose to address the country at a 'National Press Club' event. The press conference was sheer circus. Obama advisers showed him a taped video and told him to make the final decision of what to do. In a brief terse address Obama repudiated the pastor and severed all connections with Rev. Wright's church. In the general election when GOP surrogates raised the Wright issue John McCain, a gentleman, forbade any discussion of that saying that such a topic is beyond politics. Big mistake.

Obama's assertion that he has never heard such 'incendiary' remarks from Rev.Wright is a facetious claim that was eagerly lapped up by his enablers in the media and propagated for consumption to his adoring masses. The night before his announcement in Springfield, IL, for his candidacy Obama campaign was worried. Rolling Stones magazine had run a profile on Rev.Wright the pastor supposed to offer invocation at the historic ceremony. Obama personally called Rev. Wright and said 'you have a way of saying things' and suggested that Rev.Wright offer a prayer away from the public eye in the basement before the chosen 'One' ascends the stage.

Rev. Wright was known for such remarks and known to make anti-semitic remarks in sermons. Long after the election when asked if he had spoken to Obama Rev.Wright said "them Jews will not allow me to talk to him". Obama's then chief of staff Rahm Emmanuel was a Jew. Afro-American community and their leaders have a fraught relationship with Jews and Israel. Malcolm X, according to his Pulitzer awarded biographer Manning Marable, would recount the words of Saudi emperor referring to New York as 'Jew York'.

Sarah Palin's 'palling around with terrorists' helped the Obama campaign to ridicule any legitimate criticism. Lost in the mind numbing adulation of Obama was any discussion of intellectual influences on the candidate.

Obama's recent biographer David Maraniss says he referred to his first employer as 'working for the enemy'. That was Obama's vision of corporate America decades before he called Wall Street CEO's 'fat cats'. This view was strengthened and deepened in the crucible of Rev.Wright's church. From W.E.B. Du Bois to MLK Jr to Rev Al Sharpton and Rev. Jesse Jackson, criticism of capitalism is an article on faith amongst Afro-American leaders especially in church sermons.

 Everyone talked about MLK Jr's comment that 'Sunday morning is the most segregated time in America' referring to how whites and blacks have separate churches. No journalist or magazine thought it fit to write articles about black churches and their ideologies. Jodi Kantor, NYT journalist, wants to visit Mitt Romney's Mormon church and talk to fellow Mormon church goers. Recently Mitt Romney invited journalists to his church and a CNN columnist wrote asking for more such invitations.

Obama spoke in his address about being referred to as 'not black enough'. That's true. But what he failed to mention was that that whisper campaign was what the black political leadership used to destroy his run for becoming congressman in Chicago. Pulitzer winning author David Remnick recounts Obama's testy relationship with black leaders in Chicago in 'The Bridge: The life and rise of Barack Obama'. Obama needed a foothold in Chicago politics amongst Afro-Americans and the door for that was Jeremiah Wright's influential church.

Oprah Winfrey was another congregant at Wright's church. When her show started being noticed Winfrey, knowing Wright's incendiary attitude, withdrew herself from the church. It is little wonder that Obama followed her example.

Recently Rev.Wright claimed that he was offered a bribe during 2008 election to disappear and not cause a problem for Obama. Of course the press acted like they never heard the interview.

iTunes and A.R.Rahman; iPad and Ayn Rand:Lesson's in Capitalism

Growing up in Tanjore in the 80's and early 90's one of the pastimes in our family was to procure cassettes (yes, those tapes) of Tamil film songs. Often time we would make a list of just the songs we wanted and take it to a shop where they would look up their repository of collection and say which ones we could get. For like Rs50 we could get our own collection of songs. Sometimes the collection would have a theme like "Songs with Moon" (Nila Paadalgal), al the songs would be centered with moon as analogy for the theme. Copyrights were unheard of. Mostly Ilayaraja songs. Ilayaraja reigned supreme in 80's Tamil film music. This practice was common all over Tamil Nadu. Street corner tea shops would have cassettes like that and blare the latest hit songs early morning. Ilayaraja commanded a princely sum for scoring the music but earned literally zero from all these sales. He would not even have known that such a thing is possible. Hollywood Screen Writers get, I read, a dollar from the sales of each DVD in addition to their fee for writing screen play. Imagine the accrued earnings for a block buster movie.

Today A.R.Rahman earns in crores, sums which Ilayaraja would not have dreamt of. When the soundtrack of Rajini's last mega blockbuster movie, scored by Rahman, was released it burned the charts on iTunes. From the day he scored for 'Roja" in 1992 Rahman has come a long way. Now he signs contracts with recording companies like Sony at unheard of sums. Sony, no doubt, factors sales from iTunes and I'd guess Rahman's lawyers, if they are good, put in clauses for royalties from online sales. The Rajini movie is now almost a year old but even today if I bought the song revenue is shared between Apple and the record label and I am sure the music composer gets a share too.

Steve Jobs took capitalism to areas where only crony capitalism existed. An invention in America, product made in China (with South Korean and Taiwan parts), enables an obscure Indian musician to earn money through a Japanese recording label. Yes today too infringements of copyrights like I narrated would certainly take place in India but Rahman's avenues to earn money have expanded making him a global brand. If this is not progress I'd love to know what is. Seminars on economics can be woven around this.

As a bibliophile I watch with sadness as book store chains disappear. Today I read that the last remaining book store chain (Barnes and Noble) faces a possible bankruptcy. Apple's iBook (an app originally created for iPad) and Amazon.com's Kindle are the key drivers. Tennyson in his 'Idyll's of the King' wrote beautifully, "the old order changeth yielding place to new...lest one good custom should corrupt the world". Yes, a good custom left undisturbed for long will corrupt. Book selling and reading is undergoing an epochal change. I've a dog eared copy of Ayn Rand's epic "Atlas Shrugged" bought for $7. I've read the 1000 page tome several times. Yesterday 'Atlas Shrugged' was released for iPad as an app complete with rare videos of Ayn Rand's speeches, graphic laden biographical time lines, trivia quiz, multimedia presentations etc. This book published in 1954 is being repackaged and republished for the 21st century 50 years later. Cost $14. Worth every penny. 9How I wish some Tamil Classic was rendered thus but....OK why go there). Children's books are the best. Those books come with read along option with each word being read out and highlighted as they are read out.

As with iTunes store it was the app store that unleashed a torrent, not just of creativity, but very importantly of capitalism. With the core principles of free market such as copyrights, revenue sharing, ratings, comments and more app store democratized capitalism to an extent unseen in centuries. Today a college student sitting in a dorm can 'create' something, sell it and call it his 'earning'.

Steve Jobs never made anything cheap. He did not donate anything to anybody. Microsoft and Intel partner together in donating computers (of course with Windows and Intel chips) to schools. Microsoft products are far cheaper than Apple products. Microsoft and Intel really ushered in the PC era though affordable PC's. While reams of newsprint hail Jobs' business acumen in churning out products that sold at premium and sold in blockbuster numbers what is generally glossed over is a big business failure of Jobs. Jobs refused to unbundle his software (Mac OS) and the hardware. Bill Gates, very shrewdly, did the opposite and created the PC era with IBM.

Steve Jobs never subscribed to anything 'free'. Freeware was anathema to him. However iTunes serves as a platform for Ivy League universities that disburse classes free. MIT's 'Open Course ware" is very popular. MIT posts classes by its professors online through iTunesU (iTunes University). I once downloaded a physics lecture on Snell's law and practically relearnt everything that my teachers pathetically failed to teach at school and college. If colleges, in Tamil Nadu, just had internet connections and students only watched these lectures they would learnt twice as much as they learn from those who roam in the colleges calling themselves as lecturers.

That Steve Jobs is mourned so much today is not only because he produced entertainment products that millions use. Users, especially of iPhone and iPad are not just passive users. The iPhone and iPadiPad in turn become an extended identity of the owner. One can never say that of Microsoft office or a Bose audio system. Ayn Rand's biggest agony about industrialists and innovators was that they lacked the philosophical framework to appreciate what they were achieving. Likewise Apple users, mostly unknown to themselves, take part in a quintessential free market ecosystem that is the bedrock of capitalism.

The ultimate principle of capitalism is 'individualism'. The individual is the building block of capitalism. One commentator highlighted how Jobs and his products enabled individualism on a scale that no innovator or product had achieved before. Ayn Rand's in her novella  'Anthem' depicts a collectivist society where the word "I" is banished and its usage is punishable by death. Apple products are all prefixed with 'i', iPad, iMac, iPhone, iPod. 

Time magazine's "Person of the year" in 2006 was "YOU". The cover featured a Mylar strip in the place of a computer (an iMac) screen reflecting the person who is reading it. In an age of twitter, Facebook, blogs where every person expresses himself Steve Jobs and his 'i's just fit in. He cashed on an era of individualism by making his users feel that  the products they use are an extended identity.

The Apple product we bought is not a one time money-earner for Apple. The product serves as a channel for continued revenue. A PC sold by HP is one time money-earner. An iPad continues to earn money for Apple beyond the initial sales. Everytime we buy a song or an app a share of the cost goes to Apple as much as it goes to the creator of the app or the record label of the song. Let me be clear, I've the deepest admiration for business strategies that are innovative in creating revenue streams for companies. Anybody can choose never to buy an Apple product or having bought they can choose not to spend on apps etc and use it without paying one cent more to Apple.

There is a dark lining though amidst this sunny aspect of capitalism that is enveloping millions. Sociologists often talk about 'digital divide'. 'Digital divide' refers to the gulf between those who have access to internet and digital technologies and those who do not. My daughter plays piano on the iPad, listens to wide array of music, watches excellent shows, plays with innovative apps that teach physics and math. She loves to construct bird houses within a budget and test them for sturdiness. This learning experience is possible only because I could afford a pricey digital product. Some rich counties in USA are using iPads in classrooms. A kid from lesser fortunate circumstance would miss out on this. This is deepening the digital divide.

Before the critics of free market pounce on that let me caution do not take it for granted that nobody else would come along with a cheaper and better product. When Steve Jobs signed a exclusive arrangement with AT&T for iPhone AT&T's chief competitor Verizon used all their innovativeness to stanch the migration of its customers. Jobs could hold that exclusive deal for only 4 years. AT&T network was plagued by heavy data usage of iPhone customers. Finally as iPhone subscription reached a saturation point with AT&T Jobs then expanded the availability to Verizon in early 2011. The latest iPhone is available on Sprint too thus increasing the iPhone carriers to 3. Another big factor in expanding the availability is the success of Android phones.

Customers unsatisfied by the monopolistic attitudes of Jobs went to Android. Android, developed by Google, is sold to phone makers. Google, after a short disastrous stint, got out of the business of making phones. So its the classic DOS vs Mac OS fight retold as Android Vs iPhone. Android app store is more liberal unlike the control freak Apple in approving apps. Android phones now surpass iPhone sales. As Jobs said 'this is life in the technology lane'. So there might come a competitor to obliterate iPad soon enough and THAT's the charm of free market.

While Steve Jobs is being mourned by all and sundry there is little awareness of how he furthered the cause of capitalism and I wish Ayn Rand wrote his obituary. From Adam Smith to Ayn Rand with Edmund Burke, Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman in between praise Jobs for his signal service to capitalism and free markets.

The Genius of Ayn Rand.

Last November I had written http://contrarianworld.blogspot.com/2009/11/ayn-rand-enduring-allure-and-enigma.html. Today I started to write another blog and I had a sense of deja-vu. Only after typing a few sentences I went back looking for that blog. I was stunned to find that my choice of sentiments had not changed a bit. However in this blog I want to draw a contrast between Ayn Rand and George Orwell.

Orwell's 'Animal Farm' and '1984' are cult favorites of anti-communist literature. When it comes to making the case against political totalitarianism I'd any day concede that Orwell's masterful slim satire "Animal Farm' is literature at its best. Recently I was browsing Orwell's essays and was completely shocked to read his views on socialism and capitalism. The guy who was a genius is foretelling the horrors of how Stalinism is the CONSEQUENCE of communist philosophy utterly fails to see the connection between political liberty and capitalism. In an article in New Yorker by Louis Menand (Pulitzer winning author of 'Metaphysical mind')

"...Orwell had concluded long before that capitalism had failed unambiguously, and he never changed his opinion. He thought that Hitler's military success on the Continent proved once and for all the superiority of a planned economy. "It is not certain that Socialism is in all ways superior to capitalism, but it is certain that, unlike capitalism, it can solve the problems of production and consumption," he wrote. "The State simply calculates what goods will be needed and does its best to produce them."

A Socialist England, as Orwell described it, would be a classless society with virtually no private property. The State would own everything, and would require "that nobody shall live without working." Orwell thought that perhaps fifteen acres of land, "at the very most," might be permitted, presumably to allow subsistence farming, but that there would be no ownership of land in town areas. Incomes would be equalized, so that the highest income would never be greater than ten times the lowest. Above that, the tax rate should be a hundred per cent..."

WOW. Income tax should be 100%. I am sure even Karl Marx, who never earned a penny on his own, would have some sympathy for the rich. One can imagine how Hank Rearden would react. That passage of Orwell completely flies in the face of what we think of him as author of anti-totalitarian books. Not even Keynes would agree to one word of this chicanery. Nehru would agree though, whole heartedly. In his Glimpses of World History, Nehru writes to an impressionable Indira "modern economists agree that private property is an anachronism" ( think Bank Nationalization).

The only excuse I would offer for Orwell is that living in Britain he could not help it. Menand points out that Orwell thought that the British were hypocritical to speak of liberty and freedom while oppressing India. Unlike America which forged Ayn Rand Britain had no meritocracy of a similar scale, 'making money' was anathema to the landed gentry. 

The more and more I reflect deeply on what Ayn Rand gave to capitalism I realize that here was one intellectual who made us understand what it is to "earn money". Through her character Francisco she thunders "Money is not the tool of the moochers, who claim your product by tears, or of the looters, who take it from you by force. Money is made possible only by the men who produce. Is this what you consider evil?" (http://www.capitalismmagazine.com/index.php?news=1826).  She worshipped "the Dollar' and had it as insignia. "Dollar" was just a placeholder for a symbol that denoted money. 

Ayn Rand made us understand what it is to "produce", what is "profit", how capitalism is a pre-requisite for political liberty, how one without the other would degenerate into chaos. Men who choose what they buy with freedom cannot be subdued politically for long. Economic freedom circumscribed by political slavery is the chinese conundrum that has historians watching that country very curiously. Soviet Russia, from which Ayn Rand had emigrated as child, tried to control both and 'inevitably' imploded.

By the way what about Orwell's dream, everyone is entitled to his or her own utopia. A society of "from each according to his ability to each according to his need" was indeed formed by an Englishman Robert Owens (who coined the word 'socialism') in America. He wanted to try his idea in the 'New World'. It ended in sheer chaos and was, needless to say, a failure. Joshua Muravchik's masterful "Heaven on Earth" details how nations have experimented with variation of communism and how they all ended as failure without exception.

When Narasimha Rao rolled out his economic reforms the catchphrase in India was "reforms with a human face" Nobody had bothered that the socialist model, labeled 'progressive', was the cause of so much untold misery for millions over decades yet its always Capitalism that is need of a 'human face'. It is this hypocrisy that Ayn Rand tore asunder and for that she will remain our darling.