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Ayn Rand Deserves a Public
Hearing
Dear Editor,
Re: "Many Americans Feel Rand-y" -- by Matthew Rees -- May 14 -- The Ottawa
Citizen
Kudos for publishing a generally informative and praiseworthy article on novelist-philosopher
Ayn Rand. Typically the media either ignores her, smears her character or distorts
her views -- indicating a deeply-rooted fear of someone they are unable to challenge
openly, honestly, intellectually. (I'm especially thinking of a certain national
newspaper based in Toronto -- one whose editors seem to feel it is their duty to
protect their bleeding-heart, liberal-minded readership from such "outlandish"
notions as objective reality, reason, rational self-interest, individualism and laissez-faire
capitalism.)
At a time when Western intellectuals were falling over each other to praise Russia
for embracing communism, it was Ayn Rand who wrote "We The Living" and
predicted nothing but misery, death and destruction. When Americans were being told
to sacrifice their individualism to collectivism -- independent thought to mindless
conformity to the group -- personal achievement and happiness to "collective
bliss and harmony" -- the "I" to the "We" -- it was Ayn
Rand who gave them "The Fountainhead," a novel stressing individualism
and the virtue of independence in thought and action. When America was rapidly abandoning
its founding principles for big government and the welfare state it was Ayn Rand
who gave them "Atlas Shrugged" -- a prophetic novel of the decay and collapse
of America under statism. (And what about her brilliant and prophetic dissection
of the dishonest and destructive environmental movement in the early 1970s when virtually
nobody was challenging it?)
I could go on about her achievements in philosophy where she made revolutionary discoveries
in the field of metaphysics (reality as an absolute), epistemology (an objective
theory of concepts/knowledge), ethics (man's life qua man as the standard of moral
value), politics (the basis for individual rights) and aesthetics (art as a crucial
need of the human mind) -- or her brilliant dissection of modern liberals versus
modern conservatives and how they evolved from the same philosophical error: the
mind-body dichotomy -- or countless other issues (love, sex, education, introspection,
choosing careers, foreign policy, etc.) that people are struggling with today. But
I think I made my point. Ayn Rand justly deserves a public hearing -- an open, honest
debate of her ideas in mainstream media. Kudos for making an initial step in that
direction.
Sincerely,
Glenn Woiceshyn
© 1998 Glenn Woiceshyn.
All rights reserved. This article can be found on-line at at http://www.capitalism.org/glennw. |
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