From a killer she once called an “ideal man” to a political movement built around radical self-interest, the roots of today’s assault on government run deeper and darker than most Americans realize.
Nearly all of the people I know who are self-proclaimed hardcore Republicans boast of being Ayn Rand fans. That serves to validate Thom's post today in my book.
The book where she lays out the framework of her philosophy/obsession/delusion is "The Virtue of Selfishness". Like all of her writings it is droning and preachy. The woman was utterly devoid of empathy and should be remembered, if at all, as a broken human being.
You just described what I would call Nepo Derangement Syndrome. More than half the Nepos I know boast of their entitlement to power even though they did not earn the wealth that imparts that power. Ironically, most of those superior beings lost their businesses due to their mismanagement. Sometimes justice prevails.
Agreed. There’s a reason for that. I liked The Fountainhead at a young age because it sounds like she’s talking about individualism and creativity. Once I grew up, I realized it was destructive and ridiculous. Case in point: Roark’s statement “I do not give or receive help.” That’s one of the dumbest things I’ve ever heard.
My comment was not about MAGAts, in that you are correct. My comment was that Tomonthebeach swims in a pool of intelligent and thoughtful people,like him. Myself,well I am common and ordinary, brash and crude and my social peers are the same, . I said social peers, not friends and acquaintances. of them I have little to none. Birds of a feather and all of that.
Apart from being a homewrecker who banged another woman's husband from 1954-1968, Ayn was a pretty slick cultist . . . On the order of Jim Jones, without the cyanide-laced Flavor Aid [it was not Kool-Aid].
She is, post mortem, doing to the US middle class what that hero of hers did to his captive.
It seems the more horrific the life experience, the more horrific their fiction. Anthony Burgess wrote the novel "A Clockwork Orange" after his pregnant wife was sexually abused by 4 US GIs in 1944, during a London wartime blackout.
She lost the child and ultimately her life. Audiences got Kubrick's horror show.
We lose democracy and get Musk-Thiel-bought techno-fascism and Big Brother. Thanks a bunch, Ayn.
#VOTE to build a Presidential Wing of St. Elizabeth's, which opened in 1855 as the “Government Hospital for the Insane”, the first federally operated psychiatric institution in the United States.
#HOW did DT's seemingly healthy doctor kick the bucket so young? Dr. Harold Bornstein was Trump’s physician from 1980 to 2017 and died on January 8, 2021, at age 73. ... 73 ?!!!
#DRAIN all Kushner and Trump accounts. Note: Jared went begging for $ 5,000,000,000 more when he was supposed to be begging for peace in the Middle East.
Ayn Rand and Ronald Reagan were part of the Hollywood group joyfully blacklisting innocent performers, writers, artists, etc. during the heyday of their manufactured communist scare. Their association with Alan Greenspan, etc., speaks volumes. We owe it to ourselves and the nation to listen closely and respond accordingly, starting with the elevation of those who are most pointedly their diametric opposites and the rejection of those who aren’t.
This "philosophy" of Ayn Rand is ultimately self-destructive. If everyone should just be out for themselves, even at the expense of everyone else, what else could result but Thomas Hobbes' "war of all against all"? Rules, honesty, trust, and compassion exist for our own mutual benefit and survival. Our strength as a species is in our reliance on each other; this is something the Rand followers will never understand.
I read both "The Fountainhead" and "Atlas Shrugged" in college back in the early 80s, along with her pocket edition, "Anthem" (which, among other things, foretold the use of "they/them" as a singular pronoun!) I found the stories profoundly disturbing yet extremely compelling. That was her genius, such as it was, as a writer. She pumped out volume after volume of fentanyl for the mind. So no, I'm not a bit surprised by any of the crap that's happening now. Dismayed, disheartened, enraged and shit scared, yes. Surprised, no. One can sort of understand where she was coming from because of what happened to her father but she took it to extremes, cranking the volume past "11" to more like "20". And now all these swaggering tech bros imagine that they're the next Howard Roark or Dagny Taggart. This is what comes of taking grim fairy tales literally.
Strictly my opinion, but what I've seen of the MAGA universe MAGAts, by and large don't know or care who Ayn Rand was. certainly the hard core libertarians in MAGAverse do, as does the Broligarchy, but the common (and aren't they common) MAGAts, well they are not economic men and women, because they are still in the second tier or higher of Maslow's heirarchy of needs
They all drive big trucks, have cell phones, watch Fox news on a TV set via Cable or Satellite, have full bellies, a fridge full of cold beer, chicken and steaks to bar b que, despite their complaints none have yet to wear a hair shirt and really feel the pain inflicted by Randian economics.
MAGAts,, even the farmers who voted for him, the civil servants that voted for him, the car dealers and salesmen who voted for him, mom and pop and their corner deli that voted for him, did so, not because of libertarian principles, but for culture war principles. At least some Hispanics are , albeit too late, having second thoughts, same with Farmers and others, but we will shortly see if enough have deprioritized the culture war. or if religion, race, ethnicity and sexuality still reign supreme in their little febrile minds.
William,like your last paragraph. We will see in November, I am not optimistic. We have become an apathetic country. Just read an article over the weekend about how " Hitler destroyed the press" . Hitler is Trump's model. How can so many people be so stupid?
The core difference between stupid and ignorant lies in ability versus knowledge:
Ignorance is a lack of knowledge, information, or education. It is a temporary state of not knowing something. Crucially, ignorance is curable through learning, exposure, or experience. Someone who has never been taught calculus is ignorant of calculus, but they are fully capable of learning it.
Stupidity is a lack of intelligence, judgment, or reasoning ability. It refers to the inability to process information, think critically, or make sensible decisions, even when all the necessary facts and evidence are available.
We can't deal with the MAGA base with knowledge. We have to outnumber them at the polls.
Thanks Gloria. You are absolutely right that our only chance to win in the midterms is "to outnumber them at the polls". And we need a massive turnout--millions and millions of us Dems to vote BLUE so that the results are indisputable.
Outstanding! Particularly the background story on Ayn Rand's real-life "hero," William Hickman. And how all of this has metastasized into the Reagan GOP and, most outrageously, Trump's MAGA-world. This deserves the widest possible audience. If possible, try to get it reprinted in The Guardian or The New Republic or some other wide-audience liberal publication.
Ed,I agree,that should be the #1 objective.The publicatins like the Times,Economist,New Yorker,The Nation,have wide liberal audiences. There is little point in trying to appeal to the MAGA types.
This piece by Thom was absolutely outstanding as you say, Ed, and it so "deserves the widest possible audience. I too hope it can be reprinted in any "wide-audience liberal publication"--especially here in the U.S. before the midterm election! We need a massive turnout to vote Blue and save our democracy. We don't have much time left. Thanks Ed for your comment.
Blaming Rand, and the current coterie of charlatans for the current mess and chaos is, I think missing the point.
Rand was, by all accounts a pretty loathsome character, who would have fitted perfectly and with distinction into the current administration. However she did not plant the seed of greed which is now being harvested by the majority of humankind who are able to do so. Neither is the orange one responsible, he is no more than the useful idiot being used by far cleverer people who have more sense than to seek the glare of publicity for what they are doing.
After World War II, when it was obvious that the production of material goods could simultaneously eliminate the employment problem of the 30s, and fulfil the possessive aspirations of people for the foreseeable future. Politician after politician offered the assertion that the American dream was infinite in a literal sense.
Common sense was dismissed as pessimistic nonsense. The juggernaut of more could not be slowed down or stopped. Neither was there any need to.
So we voted for those who promised just that.
The current administration is no more than the culmination of the certainties we clung to. The seed of greed planted in all of us has now reached the point of full harvest. Those engaged in that harvest are the multi billionaires we allowed to buy governments in order that they should flourish as they do now.
In our naivety, we believed that wealth could be a uniform condition. Instead, the majority of us are falling under the blade of the reaper, while the privileged few Collect the harvest for themselves.
We ignored the warnings of the 19th century, when the robber Barons began to loot the primary environment to gain the wealth of coal iron and oil. Roosevelt tried to put a stop to it, and succeeded for his time, but could not protect us from that seed of greed which drove everyone to grab more of everything in the coming future.
We collectively ignored the laws of physics, because they obviously did not apply to homo sapiens. We invented religions to confirm our certainties, and now see the same thing appearing in the mega money churches. charlatans in that branch of public society also promise a future of infinite bliss, relying on the same level of gullibility that allows the Ponzi salesman to prosper.
Project 25, unfulfilled until now, is I think the culmination of a dictator's dream. (not the current clown, but those really running the circus)
The amalgamation of church and state into one of total oppression and subjection of the vast majority of people, particularly those who set themselves against it.
The super rich are not entirely stupid. They see a future of deprivation, with a landed class and an underclass willing to work in order to eat.
A historical horrifying excerpt of “evil is as evil does” we are witnessing in real time. Thank you Thom and ALL, for your knowledge & educating is keeping me sane !!
Your story is incomplete without telling the macroeconomic story that travels along side it. I'm 80 yrs old. Ayn Rand grew up in an America that represented 50% of world GDP - today it is less than 25%. You know this story, tell it. Ayn Rand IS the story of capitalism. Our history is her history! Study the history of "imperialism" and then study the economic history of the United States. Unregulated capitalism is Darwinian. We are Darwinian. The Axial Age is gone, dead!
Social Darwinism was a distortion of Adam Smith's invisible hand and Darwin's theory of evolution, combined during the Gilded Age to justify unregulated capitalism with the slogan "survival of the fittest," as though the winners of the capitalist system were superior and deserved their greedy bounty.
Thanks for that, Thom. I did not know the backstory on Rand's "hero". I forced myself to read pretty much all of her novels (along with, oddly enough, major Russian novels I had missed) during the summer between my senior year at university and law school. It was like reading horror stories to me. The writing was stilted, the ethos disgusting. Reading them helped confirm me as inherently progressive, with occasional lapses when identity politics gets too silly for me.
But the MAGAtarchy and the MAGAtariat didn't need Rand to be what they are. Our species seems at root to harbor immense numbers of us for whom greed and me first are the only dictates. No one and nothing else matters. That is a good part of what led me to embrace the Greek Orthodox faith after more than a half century of atheism. Because I think human beings are incapable of, and unwilling to, save themselves or the planet. For me, the only hope is a life after this one. I cry for our beloved grandson, and despite the incredible joy and love he has given me in his eight years, wish he had never been born. Because the world he and Generation Alpha will inherit is beyond ugly and unforgiving. They may well end up being Generation Omega before it is all concluded.
The hypocrisy is breathtaking. She preached selfishness while disparaging government programs. Yet, it’s the same government program that provided her with relief when she was sick with cancer. Same with Moscow Mitch. He opposed Obamacare with every sinew and worked to undermine it when it passed, working DJT to repeal it. But Mitch McConnell took months off with full pay on the tax payers’ dole when he got sick. He returned to the senate to vote looking like a ghost. Those who hate the government are the first rush to seek assistance from government. What horrible people!
Ayn Rand Center coming to Austin, TX in 2028. On MLK Blvd.
The Orange County based institute of her will also relocate to Austin. Good riddance.
Put it all along side the think tanks for Fibber-tarianism, Liber-tyranny, and the trump-musk project for colonizing the moon to corner the green cheese market.
Ayn Rand was mentally ill. If anyone could do anything that they wanted to do, it would be a jungle. Eat or be eaten. Her writings make me recoil in horror.
There is a strain of consciousness in Western civilization that found ground to flourish in America. It often has revealed itself in images of the man – and it is almost always a man – who lives by his own rules, appears suddenly, and then disappears, usually after facing down a gang or collection of people -- again, usually men -- who try to impose “rules”, control or group consensus.
We all recognize the image. If truth be told, most American men, and the boys they once were, hold a place inside them that holds this image as noble. He rides into town, corrects wrong, and leaves us to put things back together.
It goes back further, even, than the “outlaws” Achilles, Odysseus or Eric the Red. I have spent my life in maintaining my interest and love of history. My educated guess is that it derives from the actually very recent. movement of tribes out of Central Asia into an empty Europe – think Vikings if you want a really obvious model -- where one man could open the way, and shine.
Three-, four- and five-thousand-year-old cultures in Asia and North Africa had created primarily community centered cultures. The infant European cultures give us men continually striking out further west to create their own world.
And then they came to America.
Native Americans, here for 20,000 years were swept aside as these conquistadors forged their own private empires, or plantations. And as soon as one area was settled, a next man would strike out further west. It was all a blank canvas for each man to create his own view of life.
No wonder this damaged Russian woman was so enamored of the rugged American model… John Wayne strutting through the door he just kicked in…
But, then, we ran out of west.
So, we turned inward and started feeding on our own: On what the past generation carved out that needs to be swept away and reconquered. The psychotic vision of LITTLE CESAR getting bumped off by the next gang leader who will carve out his empire.
I am reminded of the scene in KEY LARGO where Lionel Barrymore asks the gang leader Johnny Rocco, played by Edward G Robinson, what he wants.
He stumbles on trying to reply until Humphrey Bogart’s character suggests, “... Rocco wants more.”
Yeah, that’s it, I want more!”
“Will you ever get enough?” Barrymore’s character asks.
Rocco thinks, “Well, I haven’t yet…. NO I guess I never will!” he declares triumphantly.
Perfection. If you want to understand the forces driving the GOP, the monsters that created and feed the MAGA stooges, you have your answer.
The Jungian archetyype you describe is the ISTP, aka Beach master, as epitomized by Clint Eastwood, especially in High Plains Drifter.
He rolls into town, no history, no past, no back story, he gets involved, reluctantly, in the task, completes it, then strolls on, rides off into the sunset He is the archetype of the comic super hero.
I used the term Beach master, because the Normandy invasion would not have been pulled off where it not for the beach master, who stood there amidst incoming and directed traffic coming off the barges
Nearly all of the people I know who are self-proclaimed hardcore Republicans boast of being Ayn Rand fans. That serves to validate Thom's post today in my book.
The book where she lays out the framework of her philosophy/obsession/delusion is "The Virtue of Selfishness". Like all of her writings it is droning and preachy. The woman was utterly devoid of empathy and should be remembered, if at all, as a broken human being.
You just described what I would call Nepo Derangement Syndrome. More than half the Nepos I know boast of their entitlement to power even though they did not earn the wealth that imparts that power. Ironically, most of those superior beings lost their businesses due to their mismanagement. Sometimes justice prevails.
Ayn Rand’s philosophy appeals to immature teenagers of anywhere.
Agreed. There’s a reason for that. I liked The Fountainhead at a young age because it sounds like she’s talking about individualism and creativity. Once I grew up, I realized it was destructive and ridiculous. Case in point: Roark’s statement “I do not give or receive help.” That’s one of the dumbest things I’ve ever heard.
IS IT PARTOFTRUMP'S THOUGHT PROCESSES? SEEMS TO FIT
The only part he understands is the selfishness.
That only tells us what pond you swim in. I swim in a pond with the minnows, that are eating by the Jacks', and are oblivious to that fact
Right. I did not swim in a pond. I spent most of my career swimming in a swamp near the Potomac River. Redfish were unavoidable.
They don't need those "facts" to do what they do:(
My comment was not about MAGAts, in that you are correct. My comment was that Tomonthebeach swims in a pool of intelligent and thoughtful people,like him. Myself,well I am common and ordinary, brash and crude and my social peers are the same, . I said social peers, not friends and acquaintances. of them I have little to none. Birds of a feather and all of that.
Apart from being a homewrecker who banged another woman's husband from 1954-1968, Ayn was a pretty slick cultist . . . On the order of Jim Jones, without the cyanide-laced Flavor Aid [it was not Kool-Aid].
She is, post mortem, doing to the US middle class what that hero of hers did to his captive.
It seems the more horrific the life experience, the more horrific their fiction. Anthony Burgess wrote the novel "A Clockwork Orange" after his pregnant wife was sexually abused by 4 US GIs in 1944, during a London wartime blackout.
She lost the child and ultimately her life. Audiences got Kubrick's horror show.
We lose democracy and get Musk-Thiel-bought techno-fascism and Big Brother. Thanks a bunch, Ayn.
#VOTE to build a Presidential Wing of St. Elizabeth's, which opened in 1855 as the “Government Hospital for the Insane”, the first federally operated psychiatric institution in the United States.
#HOW did DT's seemingly healthy doctor kick the bucket so young? Dr. Harold Bornstein was Trump’s physician from 1980 to 2017 and died on January 8, 2021, at age 73. ... 73 ?!!!
#DRAIN all Kushner and Trump accounts. Note: Jared went begging for $ 5,000,000,000 more when he was supposed to be begging for peace in the Middle East.
Ayn Rand and Ronald Reagan were part of the Hollywood group joyfully blacklisting innocent performers, writers, artists, etc. during the heyday of their manufactured communist scare. Their association with Alan Greenspan, etc., speaks volumes. We owe it to ourselves and the nation to listen closely and respond accordingly, starting with the elevation of those who are most pointedly their diametric opposites and the rejection of those who aren’t.
This "philosophy" of Ayn Rand is ultimately self-destructive. If everyone should just be out for themselves, even at the expense of everyone else, what else could result but Thomas Hobbes' "war of all against all"? Rules, honesty, trust, and compassion exist for our own mutual benefit and survival. Our strength as a species is in our reliance on each other; this is something the Rand followers will never understand.
I read both "The Fountainhead" and "Atlas Shrugged" in college back in the early 80s, along with her pocket edition, "Anthem" (which, among other things, foretold the use of "they/them" as a singular pronoun!) I found the stories profoundly disturbing yet extremely compelling. That was her genius, such as it was, as a writer. She pumped out volume after volume of fentanyl for the mind. So no, I'm not a bit surprised by any of the crap that's happening now. Dismayed, disheartened, enraged and shit scared, yes. Surprised, no. One can sort of understand where she was coming from because of what happened to her father but she took it to extremes, cranking the volume past "11" to more like "20". And now all these swaggering tech bros imagine that they're the next Howard Roark or Dagny Taggart. This is what comes of taking grim fairy tales literally.
Strictly my opinion, but what I've seen of the MAGA universe MAGAts, by and large don't know or care who Ayn Rand was. certainly the hard core libertarians in MAGAverse do, as does the Broligarchy, but the common (and aren't they common) MAGAts, well they are not economic men and women, because they are still in the second tier or higher of Maslow's heirarchy of needs
They all drive big trucks, have cell phones, watch Fox news on a TV set via Cable or Satellite, have full bellies, a fridge full of cold beer, chicken and steaks to bar b que, despite their complaints none have yet to wear a hair shirt and really feel the pain inflicted by Randian economics.
MAGAts,, even the farmers who voted for him, the civil servants that voted for him, the car dealers and salesmen who voted for him, mom and pop and their corner deli that voted for him, did so, not because of libertarian principles, but for culture war principles. At least some Hispanics are , albeit too late, having second thoughts, same with Farmers and others, but we will shortly see if enough have deprioritized the culture war. or if religion, race, ethnicity and sexuality still reign supreme in their little febrile minds.
William,like your last paragraph. We will see in November, I am not optimistic. We have become an apathetic country. Just read an article over the weekend about how " Hitler destroyed the press" . Hitler is Trump's model. How can so many people be so stupid?
The core difference between stupid and ignorant lies in ability versus knowledge:
Ignorance is a lack of knowledge, information, or education. It is a temporary state of not knowing something. Crucially, ignorance is curable through learning, exposure, or experience. Someone who has never been taught calculus is ignorant of calculus, but they are fully capable of learning it.
Stupidity is a lack of intelligence, judgment, or reasoning ability. It refers to the inability to process information, think critically, or make sensible decisions, even when all the necessary facts and evidence are available.
We can't deal with the MAGA base with knowledge. We have to outnumber them at the polls.
Thanks,maybe we should take your definition of Stupidity and repeat it.
Thanks Gloria. You are absolutely right that our only chance to win in the midterms is "to outnumber them at the polls". And we need a massive turnout--millions and millions of us Dems to vote BLUE so that the results are indisputable.
Outstanding! Particularly the background story on Ayn Rand's real-life "hero," William Hickman. And how all of this has metastasized into the Reagan GOP and, most outrageously, Trump's MAGA-world. This deserves the widest possible audience. If possible, try to get it reprinted in The Guardian or The New Republic or some other wide-audience liberal publication.
Ed,I agree,that should be the #1 objective.The publicatins like the Times,Economist,New Yorker,The Nation,have wide liberal audiences. There is little point in trying to appeal to the MAGA types.
This piece by Thom was absolutely outstanding as you say, Ed, and it so "deserves the widest possible audience. I too hope it can be reprinted in any "wide-audience liberal publication"--especially here in the U.S. before the midterm election! We need a massive turnout to vote Blue and save our democracy. We don't have much time left. Thanks Ed for your comment.
Blaming Rand, and the current coterie of charlatans for the current mess and chaos is, I think missing the point.
Rand was, by all accounts a pretty loathsome character, who would have fitted perfectly and with distinction into the current administration. However she did not plant the seed of greed which is now being harvested by the majority of humankind who are able to do so. Neither is the orange one responsible, he is no more than the useful idiot being used by far cleverer people who have more sense than to seek the glare of publicity for what they are doing.
After World War II, when it was obvious that the production of material goods could simultaneously eliminate the employment problem of the 30s, and fulfil the possessive aspirations of people for the foreseeable future. Politician after politician offered the assertion that the American dream was infinite in a literal sense.
Common sense was dismissed as pessimistic nonsense. The juggernaut of more could not be slowed down or stopped. Neither was there any need to.
So we voted for those who promised just that.
The current administration is no more than the culmination of the certainties we clung to. The seed of greed planted in all of us has now reached the point of full harvest. Those engaged in that harvest are the multi billionaires we allowed to buy governments in order that they should flourish as they do now.
In our naivety, we believed that wealth could be a uniform condition. Instead, the majority of us are falling under the blade of the reaper, while the privileged few Collect the harvest for themselves.
We ignored the warnings of the 19th century, when the robber Barons began to loot the primary environment to gain the wealth of coal iron and oil. Roosevelt tried to put a stop to it, and succeeded for his time, but could not protect us from that seed of greed which drove everyone to grab more of everything in the coming future.
We collectively ignored the laws of physics, because they obviously did not apply to homo sapiens. We invented religions to confirm our certainties, and now see the same thing appearing in the mega money churches. charlatans in that branch of public society also promise a future of infinite bliss, relying on the same level of gullibility that allows the Ponzi salesman to prosper.
Project 25, unfulfilled until now, is I think the culmination of a dictator's dream. (not the current clown, but those really running the circus)
The amalgamation of church and state into one of total oppression and subjection of the vast majority of people, particularly those who set themselves against it.
The super rich are not entirely stupid. They see a future of deprivation, with a landed class and an underclass willing to work in order to eat.
Yes, your children's future really is that grim.
Maybe it's time to identify all of these horrific human beings and find a strategy to fight back.
i wouldnt go as far as to say ''look in a mirror''....but as a species we are responsible for the mess we have created
A historical horrifying excerpt of “evil is as evil does” we are witnessing in real time. Thank you Thom and ALL, for your knowledge & educating is keeping me sane !!
Your story is incomplete without telling the macroeconomic story that travels along side it. I'm 80 yrs old. Ayn Rand grew up in an America that represented 50% of world GDP - today it is less than 25%. You know this story, tell it. Ayn Rand IS the story of capitalism. Our history is her history! Study the history of "imperialism" and then study the economic history of the United States. Unregulated capitalism is Darwinian. We are Darwinian. The Axial Age is gone, dead!
Social Darwinism was a distortion of Adam Smith's invisible hand and Darwin's theory of evolution, combined during the Gilded Age to justify unregulated capitalism with the slogan "survival of the fittest," as though the winners of the capitalist system were superior and deserved their greedy bounty.
It preceded Reagan and Friedman's neoliberalism.
Thanks for that, Thom. I did not know the backstory on Rand's "hero". I forced myself to read pretty much all of her novels (along with, oddly enough, major Russian novels I had missed) during the summer between my senior year at university and law school. It was like reading horror stories to me. The writing was stilted, the ethos disgusting. Reading them helped confirm me as inherently progressive, with occasional lapses when identity politics gets too silly for me.
But the MAGAtarchy and the MAGAtariat didn't need Rand to be what they are. Our species seems at root to harbor immense numbers of us for whom greed and me first are the only dictates. No one and nothing else matters. That is a good part of what led me to embrace the Greek Orthodox faith after more than a half century of atheism. Because I think human beings are incapable of, and unwilling to, save themselves or the planet. For me, the only hope is a life after this one. I cry for our beloved grandson, and despite the incredible joy and love he has given me in his eight years, wish he had never been born. Because the world he and Generation Alpha will inherit is beyond ugly and unforgiving. They may well end up being Generation Omega before it is all concluded.
The hypocrisy is breathtaking. She preached selfishness while disparaging government programs. Yet, it’s the same government program that provided her with relief when she was sick with cancer. Same with Moscow Mitch. He opposed Obamacare with every sinew and worked to undermine it when it passed, working DJT to repeal it. But Mitch McConnell took months off with full pay on the tax payers’ dole when he got sick. He returned to the senate to vote looking like a ghost. Those who hate the government are the first rush to seek assistance from government. What horrible people!
She acquired her extreme narcissism in Hollywood and rather infamously looked to a vicious murderer as an inspiration.
Ayn Rand Center coming to Austin, TX in 2028. On MLK Blvd.
The Orange County based institute of her will also relocate to Austin. Good riddance.
Put it all along side the think tanks for Fibber-tarianism, Liber-tyranny, and the trump-musk project for colonizing the moon to corner the green cheese market.
https://www.kxan.com/news/local/austin/book-shaped-ayn-rand-center-under-construction-set-to-open-in-2028/
Poor Austin… confederate wingnuts bring another new horror to the Texas Capitol:
A conservative Law school to bypass the ABA!
https://www.yahoo.com/news/politics/articles/university-austin-plans-sidestep-american-150000859.html?
Ayn Rand was mentally ill. If anyone could do anything that they wanted to do, it would be a jungle. Eat or be eaten. Her writings make me recoil in horror.
There is a strain of consciousness in Western civilization that found ground to flourish in America. It often has revealed itself in images of the man – and it is almost always a man – who lives by his own rules, appears suddenly, and then disappears, usually after facing down a gang or collection of people -- again, usually men -- who try to impose “rules”, control or group consensus.
We all recognize the image. If truth be told, most American men, and the boys they once were, hold a place inside them that holds this image as noble. He rides into town, corrects wrong, and leaves us to put things back together.
It goes back further, even, than the “outlaws” Achilles, Odysseus or Eric the Red. I have spent my life in maintaining my interest and love of history. My educated guess is that it derives from the actually very recent. movement of tribes out of Central Asia into an empty Europe – think Vikings if you want a really obvious model -- where one man could open the way, and shine.
Three-, four- and five-thousand-year-old cultures in Asia and North Africa had created primarily community centered cultures. The infant European cultures give us men continually striking out further west to create their own world.
And then they came to America.
Native Americans, here for 20,000 years were swept aside as these conquistadors forged their own private empires, or plantations. And as soon as one area was settled, a next man would strike out further west. It was all a blank canvas for each man to create his own view of life.
No wonder this damaged Russian woman was so enamored of the rugged American model… John Wayne strutting through the door he just kicked in…
But, then, we ran out of west.
So, we turned inward and started feeding on our own: On what the past generation carved out that needs to be swept away and reconquered. The psychotic vision of LITTLE CESAR getting bumped off by the next gang leader who will carve out his empire.
I am reminded of the scene in KEY LARGO where Lionel Barrymore asks the gang leader Johnny Rocco, played by Edward G Robinson, what he wants.
He stumbles on trying to reply until Humphrey Bogart’s character suggests, “... Rocco wants more.”
Yeah, that’s it, I want more!”
“Will you ever get enough?” Barrymore’s character asks.
Rocco thinks, “Well, I haven’t yet…. NO I guess I never will!” he declares triumphantly.
Perfection. If you want to understand the forces driving the GOP, the monsters that created and feed the MAGA stooges, you have your answer.
DL
The Jungian archetyype you describe is the ISTP, aka Beach master, as epitomized by Clint Eastwood, especially in High Plains Drifter.
He rolls into town, no history, no past, no back story, he gets involved, reluctantly, in the task, completes it, then strolls on, rides off into the sunset He is the archetype of the comic super hero.
I used the term Beach master, because the Normandy invasion would not have been pulled off where it not for the beach master, who stood there amidst incoming and directed traffic coming off the barges