Ayn Rand was one the most influential writers of the 20th century. According to the a poll conducted in 1991 under the auspices of the Library of Congress, her Atlas Shrugged is second only to the Bible in general influence in this country. It was she who more than any other writer in history championed capitalism not just as the most practical economic system--but as the only one consistent with reason and ethics. She called her philosophy, "Objectivism."
At the present time, the market place is more highly esteemed by more Americans than is government; this may soon be the case with a majority of the literate in other countries as well. Increasingly government is now viewed as a burden, rather than as a benefit. Yet, a political- economic system cannot continue to exist simply on the basis of a current success. Moreover, the present order is a mixture of capitalism and controls. Sooner or later, problems will develop, as they did in the nineteen thirties--and then people will have to consider what was at fault. Should there be a depression or some other huge social contagion, the lack of true answers may mean more war--perhaps right here in the United States.
Mr. Erickson's book, The Stance Of Atlas, contains an examination of Ayn Rand's philosophy of Objectivism. More than that, it provides answers to some of the problems in philosophy which she had attempted to solve, but unsuccessfully.
It contains 361 pages, including index--softbound.
DAY I - To America With Love The movement of the sky is very much in evidence. It is Portland, Oregon in February. Three adults in their thirties are inside a restaurant, drinking various non-alcoholic beverages. Outside the wind and the rain are tearing at banners proclaiming an important game for the city's famous basketball team. The three barely know each other. They are Nolan Stanford, a history professor at a near-by college, Miss Doxa, an intense young woman lawyer, and Penelope, a much prettier young woman and also a millionairess through inheritance.
Stanford: It has been called the "American Century." During this period, more technological achievements have been made by Americans than that of any other country, besides which the achievements of our countrymen in the nineteenth century--such as, the telegraph, the telephone, the electric light, the gyrocompass, and the Pullman passenger railroad carriage--seem almost quaint by comparison. Yet, at American's center, there is a spiritual vacuum. Outside of science and technology, the intellectual Protestantism which gave the country its birth and beginnings has not had much influence since the twenties. In its place has come liberalism and conservatism. The liberals measure their progress by the degree and extent they have changed the institutions set up by the country's founders. The conservatives, who have been in retreat most of the time, have done little more than protest the excesses of their rival. As long ago as 1960, William F. Buckley, Jr. admitted in a speech that the "conservative spirit of America" was "a wasting battery, perhaps...."
Doxa: That is how it is with the old America championed by the conservatives. But there is a solution. It was provided by Ayn Rand. Arriving in America in 1925, she brought with her a love for her new country that was uniquely her own. After living here a while, she espied what you people call, "spiritual emptiness." This, she has filled with a philosophy of unbreached rationality. In 1991, only nine years after her death, a survey of Americans made by the Library of Congress as to which books have had the greatest influence on the respondents' lives, shows that her novel, Atlas Shrugged, was exceeded only by the Bible.
Penelope: That was a very interesting book, but I liked The Fountainhead more. What sort of life did she lead?
Doxa: A life of intense work. She began in Hollywood as a script writer. In the next decade, she wrote a successful Broadway play which was later made into a movie and published a novel protesting conditions in Soviet Russia. She composed a novelette which was, in a way, a forerunner of Orwell. In 1943 came that book which you liked so much. Out of this was made a successful movie starring Gary Cooper and Patricia O'Neill. But it was with the publication of "Atlas" in 1957 that her fame started growing by leaps and bounds. Although most of the book reviews were hostile, it sold to an ever greater audience through word of mouth.
Stanford: Yes, I know. It combined intense intellectuality with a romantic idealism, all set in a plot of high adventure--in a word, it had "splendour."
Doxa: So you have read it.
Stanford: Yes. But please go on.
Doxa: By the mid sixties, Ayn Rand was easily one of the most famous women in America. In 1964 came the best selling collection of essays, The Virtue Of Selfishness. There, she took on the hoary equation of self-interest with harm to others, affirming that a "'selfless,' 'disinterested' love is a contradiction in terms: it means that one is indifferent to that which one values." Then, throughout 1966 and 1967 came her philosophical masterpiece, Introduction To the Objectivist Epistemology, the most widely read work of philosophy written during the second half of the century. The dominant American philosophies, pragmatism and behaviorism, were served notice.
Penelope: Did she write any more novels?
Doxa: No, her last novel was unfinished. But she did write articles for her publications; several were put in book form. The most famous is Capitalism: the Unknown Ideal, which included a piece by the then unknown, Alan Greenspan, now Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board. Ayn Rand died in 1982. Of the famous American intellectuals who reached international fame in the sixties, only she still has a following.
Stanford: There is also still a great interest in Buckminster Fuller. But tell us, why this fame?
