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Ayn Rand

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Alice O'Connor (born Alisa Zinovyevna Rosenbaum;Template:Efn Template:OldStyleDateNY, 1905Template:DashMarch 6, 1982), better known by her pen name Ayn Rand (Template:IPAc-en), was a Russian-born American writer and philosopher.Template:Sfn She is known for her fiction and for developing a philosophical system which she named Objectivism. Born and educated in Russia, she moved to the United States in 1926. After two early novels that were initially unsuccessful and two Broadway plays, Rand achieved fame with her 1943 novel The Fountainhead. In 1957, she published her best-selling work, the novel Atlas Shrugged. Afterward, until her death in 1982, she turned to non-fiction to promote her philosophy, publishing her own periodicals and releasing several collections of essays.

Rand advocated reason and rejected faith and religion. She supported rational and ethical egoism as opposed to altruism and hedonism. In politics, she condemned the initiation of force as immoral and supported laissez-faire capitalism, which she defined as the system based on recognizing individual rights, including private property rights. Although she opposed libertarianism, which she viewed as anarchism, Rand is often associated with the modern libertarian movement in the United States. In art, she promoted romantic realism. She was sharply critical of most philosophers and philosophical traditions known to her, with a few exceptions.

Rand's books have sold over 37 million copies.Template:Efn Her fiction received mixed reviews from literary critics, with reviews becoming more negative for her later work.Template:Sfn Although academic interest in her ideas has grown since her death,Template:Sfn academic philosophers have generally ignored or rejected Rand's philosophy, arguing that she has a polemical approach and that her work lacks methodological rigor.Template:Sfn Her writings have politically influenced some right-libertarians and conservatives. The Objectivist movement circulates her ideas, both to the public and in academic settings.

Life and careerEdit

Early lifeEdit

Rand was born Alisa Zinovyevna Rosenbaum on FebruaryTemplate:Nbs2, 1905, into a Jewish bourgeois family living in Saint Petersburg, which was then the capital of the Russian Empire.Template:Sfn She was the eldest of three daughters of Zinovy Zakharovich Rosenbaum, a pharmacist, and Anna Borisovna (Template:Née).Template:Sfn She was 12 when the October Revolution and the rule of the Bolsheviks under Vladimir Lenin disrupted her family's lives. Her father's pharmacy was nationalized,Template:Sfn and the family fled to Yevpatoria in Crimea, which was initially under the control of the White Army during the Russian Civil War.Template:Sfn After graduating high school there in June 1921,Template:Sfn she returned with her family to Petrograd, as Saint Petersburg was then named,Template:Efn where they faced desperate conditions, occasionally nearly starving.Template:Sfn

File:Pola Negri by Ayn Rand cover.jpg
Rand's first published work was a monograph in Russian about actress Pola Negri.

After the Russian Revolution opened up Russian universities to women, Rand was among the first to enroll at Petrograd State University, now Saint Petersburg State University.Template:Sfn At 16, she began her studies in the department of social pedagogy, majoring in history.Template:Sfn She was one of many bourgeois students purged from the university shortly before graduating. After complaints from a group of visiting foreign scientists, many purged students, including Rand, were reinstated.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn

In October 1924, she graduated from the renamed Leningrad State University.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn She then studied for a year at the State Technicum for Screen Arts in Leningrad. For an assignment, Rand wrote an essay about the Polish actress Pola Negri. It became her first published work.Template:Sfn She decided her professional surname for writing would be Rand,Template:Sfn and she adopted the first name Ayn (pronounced Template:IPAc-en).Template:SfnTemplate:Efn

In late 1925, Rand was granted a visa to visit relatives in Chicago.Template:Sfn She arrived in New York City on FebruaryTemplate:Nbs19, 1926.Template:Sfn Intent on staying in the United States to become a screenwriter, she lived for a few months with her relatives learning EnglishTemplate:Sfn before moving to Hollywood, California.Template:Sfn

In Hollywood a chance meeting with director Cecil B. DeMille led to work as an extra in his film The King of Kings and a subsequent job as a junior screenwriter.Template:Sfn While working on The King of Kings, she met the aspiring actor Frank O'Connor.Template:Efn They married on AprilTemplate:Nbs15, 1929. She became a permanent American resident in July 1929 and an American citizen on MarchTemplate:Nbs3, 1931.Template:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Efn She tried to bring her parents and sisters to the United States, but they could not obtain permission to emigrate.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Rand's father died of a heart attack in 1939. One of her sisters and their mother died during the siege of Leningrad.Template:Sfn

Early fictionEdit

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File:Night of January 16th jury flyer front.jpg
Rand's play Night of January 16th opened on Broadway in 1935.

In 1932, Rand's first literary success was the sale of her screenplay Red Pawn to Universal Studios, although it was never produced.Template:SfnTemplate:Efn Her courtroom drama Night of January 16th, first staged in Hollywood in 1934, reopened successfully on Broadway in 1935. Each night, a jury was selected from members of the audience. Based on its vote, one of two different endings would be performed.Template:SfnTemplate:Efn In December 1934, Rand and O'Connor moved to New York City so she could handle revisions for the Broadway production.Template:Sfn

In 1936, her first novel was published, the semi-autobiographicalTemplate:Sfn We the Living. Set in Soviet Russia, it focuses on the struggle between the individual and the state. Initial sales were slow, and the American publisher let it go out of print;Template:Sfn however, European editions continued to sell.<ref>Ralston, Richard E. "Publishing We the Living". In Template:Harvnb.</ref> She adapted the story as a stage play, but the Broadway production closed in less than a week.<ref>Britting, Jeff. "Adapting We the Living". In Template:Harvnb.</ref>Template:Efn After the success of her later novels, Rand released a revised version in 1959 that has sold over three million copies.<ref>Ralston, Richard E. "Publishing We the Living". In Template:Harvnb.</ref>

In December 1935, Rand started her next major novel, The Fountainhead,Template:Sfn but took a break from it in 1937 to write her novella Anthem.Template:Sfn The novella presents a dystopian future world in which totalitarian collectivism has triumphed to such an extent that the word I has been forgotten and replaced with we.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Protagonists Equality 7-2521 and Liberty 5-3000 eventually escape the collectivistic society and rediscover the word I.Template:Sfn It was published in England in 1938, but Rand could not find an American publisher at that time. As with We the Living, Rand's later success allowed her to get a revised version published in 1946, and this sold over 3.5Template:Nbsmillion copies.<ref>Ralston, Richard E. "Publishing Anthem". In Template:Harvnb.</ref>

The Fountainhead and political activismEdit

Template:See also In the 1940s, Rand became politically active. She and her husband were full-time volunteers for Republican Wendell Willkie's 1940 presidential campaign.Template:Sfn This work put her in contact with other intellectuals sympathetic to free-market capitalism. She became friends with journalist Henry Hazlitt, who introduced her to the Austrian School economist Ludwig von Mises. Despite philosophical differences with them, Rand strongly endorsed the writings of both men, and they expressed admiration for her. Mises once called her "the most courageous man in America", a compliment that particularly pleased her because he said "man" instead of "woman".Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Rand became friends with libertarian writer Isabel Paterson. Rand questioned her about American history and politics during their many meetings, and gave Paterson ideas for her only non-fiction book, The God of the Machine.Template:SfnTemplate:Efn

File:The Fountain Head (1943 1st ed) - Ayn Rand.jpg
The Fountainhead was Rand's first bestseller.

In 1943, Rand's first major success as a writer came with The Fountainhead,Template:Sfn a novel about an uncompromising architect named Howard Roark and his struggle against what Rand described as "second-handers" who attempt to live through others, placing others above themselves. Twelve publishers rejected it before Bobbs-Merrill Company accepted it at the insistence of editor Archibald Ogden, who threatened to quit if his employer did not publish it.Template:Sfn

While completing the novel, Rand was prescribed Benzedrine, an amphetamine, to fight fatigue.Template:Sfn The drug helped her to work long hours to meet her deadline for delivering the novel, but afterwards she was so exhausted that her doctor ordered two weeks' rest.Template:Sfn Her use of the drug for approximately three decades may have contributed to mood swings and outbursts described by some of her later associates.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn

The success of The Fountainhead brought Rand fame and financial security.Template:Sfn In 1943, she sold the film rights to Warner Bros. and returned to Hollywood to write the screenplay. Producer Hal B. Wallis then hired her as a screenwriter and script-doctor for screenplays including Love Letters and You Came Along.Template:Sfn Rand became involved with the anti-Communist Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals and American Writers Association.Template:Sfn

In 1947, during the Second Red Scare, she testified as a "friendly witness" before the United States House Un-American Activities Committee that the 1944 film Song of Russia grossly misrepresented conditions in the Soviet Union, portraying life there as much better and happier than it was.Template:Sfn She also wanted to criticize the lauded 1946 film The Best Years of Our Lives for what she interpreted as its negative presentation of the business world but was not allowed to do so.Template:Sfn When asked after the hearings about her feelings on the investigations' effectiveness, Rand described the process as "futile".Template:Sfn

In 1949, after several delays, the film version of The Fountainhead was released. Although it used Rand's screenplay with minimal alterations, she "disliked the movie from beginning to end" and complained about its editing, the acting and other elements.Template:Sfn

Atlas Shrugged and ObjectivismEdit

Template:See also

File:Famous fantastic mysteries 195306.jpg
Rand's novella Anthem was reprinted in the June 1953 issue of the pulp magazine Famous Fantastic Mysteries.<ref>Ralston, Richard E. "Publishing Anthem". In Template:Harvnb.</ref>

Following the publication of The Fountainhead, Rand received many letters from readers, some of whom the book had influenced profoundly.Template:Sfn In 1951, Rand moved from Los Angeles to New York City, where she gathered a group of these admirers who met at Rand's apartment on weekends to discuss philosophy. The group included future chair of the Federal Reserve Alan Greenspan, a young psychology student named Nathan Blumenthal (later Nathaniel Branden) and his wife Barbara, and Barbara's cousin Leonard Peikoff. Later, Rand began allowing them to read the manuscript drafts of her new novel, Atlas Shrugged.Template:Sfn

In 1954, her close relationship with Nathaniel Branden turned into a romantic affair. They informed both their spouses, who briefly objected, until Rand "sp[u]n out a deductive chain from which you just couldn't escape", in Barbara Branden's words, resulting in her and O'Connor's assent.Template:Sfn Historian Jennifer Burns concludes that O'Connor was likely "the hardest hit" emotionally by the affair.Template:Sfn

Published in 1957, Atlas Shrugged is considered Rand's magnum opus.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn She described the novel's theme as "the role of the mind in man's existence—and, as a corollary, the demonstration of a new moral philosophy: the morality of rational self-interest".<ref>Salmieri, Gregory. "Atlas Shrugged on the Role of the Mind in Man's Existence". In Template:Harvnb.</ref> It advocates the core tenets of Rand's philosophy of Objectivism and expresses her concept of human achievement. The plot involves a dystopian United States in which the most creative industrialists, scientists, and artists respond to a welfare state government by going on strike and retreating to a hidden valley where they build an independent free economy. The novel's hero and leader of the strike, John Galt, describes it as stopping "the motor of the world" by withdrawing the minds of individuals contributing most to the nation's wealth and achievements.Template:Sfn The novel contains an exposition of Objectivism in a lengthy monologue delivered by Galt.<ref>Stolyarov II, G. "The Role and Essence of John Galt's Speech in Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged". In Template:Harvnb.</ref>

Despite many negative reviews, Atlas Shrugged became an international bestseller,Template:Sfn but the reaction of intellectuals to the novel discouraged and depressed Rand.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Atlas Shrugged was her last completed work of fiction, marking the end of her career as a novelist and the beginning of her role as a popular philosopher.Template:Sfn

In 1958, Nathaniel Branden established the Nathaniel Branden Lectures, later incorporated as the Nathaniel Branden Institute (NBI), to promote Rand's philosophy through public lectures. In 1962, he and Rand co-founded The Objectivist Newsletter (later renamed The Objectivist) to circulate articles about her ideas.Template:Sfn She later republished some of these articles in book form. Rand was unimpressed by many of the NBI studentsTemplate:Sfn and held them to strict standards, sometimes reacting coldly or angrily to those who disagreed with her.Template:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn

Critics, including some former NBI students and Branden himself, later said the NBI culture was one of intellectual conformity and excessive reverence for Rand. Some described the NBI or the Objectivist movement as a cult or religion.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Rand expressed opinions on a wide range of topics, from literature and music to sexuality and facial hair. Some of her followers mimicked her preferences, wearing clothes to match characters from her novels and buying furniture like hers.Template:Sfn Some former NBI students believed the extent of these behaviors was exaggerated, and the problem was concentrated among Rand's closest followers in New York.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn

Later yearsEdit

In the 1960s and 1970s, Rand developed and promoted her Objectivist philosophy through nonfiction and speeches,Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn including annual lectures at the Ford Hall Forum.Template:Sfn In answers to audience questions, she took controversial stances on political and social issues. These included supporting abortion rights,Template:Sfn opposing the Vietnam War and the military draft (but condemning many draft dodgers as "bums"),Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn supporting Israel in the Yom Kippur War of 1973 against a coalition of Arab nations as "civilized men fighting savages",Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn claiming European colonists had the right to invade and take land inhabited by American Indians,Template:Sfn<ref>Thompson, Stephen. "Topographies of Liberal Thought: Rand and Arendt and Race". In Template:Harvnb.</ref> and calling homosexuality "immoral" and "disgusting", despite advocating the repeal of all laws concerning it.Template:Sfn She endorsed several Republican candidates for president of the United States, most strongly Barry Goldwater in 1964.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn

File:Ayn Rand Marker.jpg
Grave marker for Rand and her husband at Kensico Cemetery in Valhalla, New YorkTemplate:Sfn

In 1964, Nathaniel Branden began an affair with the young actress Patrecia Scott, whom he later married. Nathaniel and Barbara Branden kept the affair hidden from Rand. As her relationship with Nathaniel Branden deteriorated, Rand had her husband be present for difficult conversations between her and Branden.Template:Sfn In 1968, Rand learned about Branden's relationship with Scott. Though her romantic involvement with Nathaniel Branden was already over,Template:Sfn Rand ended her relationship with both Brandens, and the NBI closed.Template:Sfn She published an article in The Objectivist repudiating Nathaniel Branden for dishonesty and "irrational behavior in his private life".Template:Sfn In subsequent years, Rand and several more of her closest associates parted company.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn

In 1973, Rand's younger sister Eleonora Drobisheva (née Rosenbaum, 1910–1999) visited her in the US at Rand's invitation, but did not accept her lifestyle and views, as well as finding little literary merit in her works. She returned to the Soviet Union and spent the rest of her life in Leningrad, later Saint Petersburg.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

In 1974, Rand had surgery for lung cancer after decades of heavy smoking.Template:Sfn In 1976, she retired from her newsletter and, despite her lifelong objections to any government-run program (while stating that only those who opposed such programs were entitled to recoup their contributions), was enrolled in and claimed Social Security and Medicare with the aid of a social worker.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Her activities in the Objectivist movement declined, especially after her husband died on NovemberTemplate:Nbs9, 1979.Template:Sfn One of her final projects was a never-completed television adaptation of Atlas Shrugged.Template:Sfn

On MarchTemplate:Nbs6, 1982, Rand died of heart failure at her home in New York City.Template:Sfn Her funeral included a Template:Convert floral arrangement in the shape of a dollar sign.Template:Sfn In her will, Rand named Peikoff as her heir.Template:Sfn

Literary approach, influences and receptionEdit

Rand described her approach to literature as "romantic realism".Template:Sfn She wanted her fiction to present the world "as it could be and should be", rather than as it was.<ref>Britting, Jeff. "Adapting The Fountainhead to Film". In Template:Harvnb.</ref> This approach led her to create highly stylized situations and characters. Her fiction typically has protagonists who are heroic individualists, depicted as fit and attractive.Template:Sfn Her villains support duty and collectivist moral ideals. Rand often describes them as unattractive, and some have names that suggest negative traits, such as Wesley Mouch in Atlas Shrugged.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn

Rand considered plot a critical element of literature,Template:Sfn and her stories typically have what biographer Anne Heller described as "tight, elaborate, fast-paced plotting".Template:Sfn Romantic triangles are a common plot element in Rand's fiction; in most of her novels and plays, the main female character is romantically involved with at least two men.Template:Sfn<ref>Wilt, Judith. "The Romances of Ayn Rand". In Template:Harvnb.</ref>

InfluencesEdit

File:Victor Hugo by Étienne Carjat 1876 - full.jpg
Rand admired the novels of Victor Hugo.

In school, Rand read works by Fyodor Dostoevsky, Victor Hugo, Edmond Rostand, and Friedrich Schiller, who became her favorites.Template:Sfn She considered them to be among the "top rank" of Romantic writers because of their focus on moral themes and their skill at constructing plots.Template:Sfn Hugo was an important influence on her writing, especially her approach to plotting. In the introduction she wrote for an English-language edition of his novel Ninety-Three, Rand called him "the greatest novelist in world literature".Template:Sfn

Although Rand disliked most Russian literature, her depictions of her heroes show the influence of the Russian SymbolistsTemplate:Sfn and other nineteenth-century Russian writing, most notably the 1863 novel What Is to Be Done? by Nikolay Chernyshevsky.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Scholars of Russian literature see in Chernyshevsky's character Rakhmetov, an "ascetic revolutionist", the template for Rand's literary heroes and heroines.Template:Sfn

Rand's experience of the Russian Revolution and early Communist Russia influenced the portrayal of her villains. Beyond We the Living, which is set in Russia, this influence can be seen in the ideas and rhetoric of Ellsworth Toohey in The Fountainhead,Template:Sfn and in the destruction of the economy in Atlas Shrugged.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn

Rand's descriptive style echoes her early career writing scenarios and scripts for movies; her novels have many narrative descriptions that resemble early Hollywood movie scenarios. They often follow common film editing conventions, such as having a broad establishing shot description of a scene followed by close-up details, and her descriptions of women characters often take a "male gaze" perspective.<ref>Gladstein, Mimi Reisel. "Ayn Rand's Cinematic Eye". In Template:Harvnb.</ref>

Contemporary reviewsEdit

File:Ayn Rand (1957 Phyllis Cerf portrait).jpg
Rand in 1957

The first reviews Rand received were for Night of January 16th. Reviews of the Broadway production were largely positive, but Rand considered even positive reviews to be embarrassing because of significant changes made to her script by the producer.Template:Sfn Although Rand believed that We the Living was not widely reviewed, over 200 publications published approximately 125 different reviews. Overall, they were more positive than those she received for her later work.<ref>Berliner, Michael S. "Reviews of We the Living". In Template:Harvnb.</ref> Anthem received little review attention, both for its first publication in England and for subsequent re-issues.<ref>Berliner, Michael S. "Reviews of Anthem". In Template:Harvnb.</ref>

Rand's first bestseller, The Fountainhead, received far fewer reviews than We the Living, and reviewers' opinions were mixed.<ref name="tfreviews">Berliner, Michael S. "The Fountainhead Reviews". In Template:Harvnb.</ref> Lorine Pruette's positive review in The New York Times, which called the author "a writer of great power" who wrote "brilliantly, beautifully and bitterly",Template:Sfn was one that Rand greatly appreciated.Template:Sfn There were other positive reviews, but Rand dismissed most of them for either misunderstanding her message or for being in unimportant publications.<ref name="tfreviews"/> Some negative reviews said the novel was too long;Template:Sfn others called the characters unsympathetic and Rand's style "offensively pedestrian".<ref name="tfreviews"/>

Atlas Shrugged was widely reviewed, and many of the reviews were strongly negative.Template:Sfn<ref name="asreviews">Berliner, Michael S. "The Atlas Shrugged Reviews". In Template:Harvnb.</ref> Atlas Shrugged received positive reviews from a few publications;<ref name="asreviews"/> however, Rand scholar Mimi Reisel Gladstein later wrote that "reviewers seemed to vie with each other in a contest to devise the cleverest put-downs", with reviews including comments that it was "written out of hate" and showed "remorseless hectoring and prolixity".Template:Sfn Whittaker Chambers wrote what was later called the novel's most "notorious" reviewTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn for the conservative magazine National Review. He accused Rand of supporting a godless system (which he related to that of the Soviets), claiming, "From almost any page of Atlas Shrugged, a voice can be heard ... commanding: 'To a gas chamber—go!Template:' ".Template:SfnTemplate:Efn

Rand's nonfiction received far fewer reviews than her novels. The tenor of the criticism for her first nonfiction book, For the New Intellectual, was similar to that for Atlas Shrugged.Template:Sfn Philosopher Sidney Hook likened her certainty to "the way philosophy is written in the Soviet Union",Template:Sfn and author Gore Vidal called her viewpoint "nearly perfect in its immorality".Template:Sfn These reviews set the pattern for reaction to her ideas among liberal critics.Template:Sfn Her subsequent books got progressively less review attention.Template:Sfn

Academic assessments of Rand's fictionEdit

Academic consideration of Rand as a literary figure during her life was limited. Mimi Reisel Gladstein could not find any scholarly articles about Rand's novels when she began researching her in 1973, and only three such articles appeared during the rest of the 1970s.Template:Sfn Since her death, scholars of English and American literature have continued largely to ignore her work,Template:Sfn although attention to her literary work has increased since the 1990s.Template:Sfn Several academic book series about important authors cover Rand and her works,Template:Efn as do popular study guides like CliffsNotes and SparkNotes.Template:Sfn In The Literary Encyclopedia entry for Rand written in 2001, John David Lewis declared that "Rand wrote the most intellectually challenging fiction of her generation."Template:Sfn In 2019, Lisa Duggan described Rand's fiction as popular and influential on many readers, despite being easy to criticize for "her cartoonish characters and melodramatic plots, her rigid moralizing, her middle- to lowbrow aesthetic preferencesTemplate:Nbs... and philosophical strivings".Template:Sfn

PhilosophyEdit

Template:Objectivist movement Template:Libertarianism US {{#invoke:Labelled list hatnote|labelledList|Main article|Main articles|Main page|Main pages}} Rand called her philosophy "Objectivism", describing its essence as "the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute".Template:Sfn She considered Objectivism a systematic philosophy and laid out positions on metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, aesthetics, and political philosophy.Template:Sfn

Metaphysics and epistemologyEdit

In metaphysics, Rand supported philosophical realism and opposed anything she regarded as mysticism or supernaturalism, including all forms of religion.<ref>Den Uyl, Douglas J. & Rasmussen, Douglas B. "Ayn Rand's Realism". In Template:Harvnb.</ref> Rand believed in free will as a form of agent causation and rejected determinism.<ref>Rheins, Jason G. "Objectivist Metaphysics: The Primacy of Existence". In Template:Harvnb.</ref>

Rand also related her aesthetics to metaphysics by defining art as a "selective re-creation of reality according to an artist's metaphysical value-judgments".Template:Sfn According to her, art allows philosophical concepts to be presented in a concrete form that can be grasped easily, thereby fulfilling a need of human consciousness.Template:Sfn As a writer, the art form Rand focused on most closely was literature. In works such as The Romantic Manifesto and The Art of Fiction, she described Romanticism as the approach that most accurately reflects the existence of human free will.Template:Sfn

In epistemology, Rand considered all knowledge to be based on forming higher levels of understanding from sense perception, the validity of which she considered axiomatic.Template:Sfn She described reason as "the faculty that identifies and integrates the material provided by man's senses".<ref>Salmieri, Gregory. "The Objectivist Epistemology". In Template:Harvnb.</ref> Rand rejected all claims of non-perceptual knowledge, including Template:" 'instinct,' 'intuition,' 'revelation,' or any form of 'just knowingTemplate:' ".Template:Sfn In her Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology, Rand presented a theory of concept formation and rejected the analytic–synthetic dichotomy.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn She believed epistemology was a foundational branch of philosophy and considered the advocacy of reason to be the single most significant aspect of her philosophy.<ref>Salmieri, Gregory. "The Objectivist Epistemology". In Template:Harvnb.</ref>

Commentators, including Hazel Barnes, Nathaniel Branden, and Albert Ellis, have criticized Rand's focus on the importance of reason. Barnes and Ellis said Rand was too dismissive of emotion and failed to recognize its importance in human life. Branden said Rand's emphasis on reason led her to denigrate emotions and create unrealistic expectations of how consistently rational human beings should be.Template:Sfn

Ethics and politicsEdit

In ethics, Rand argued for rational and ethical egoism (rational self-interest), as the guiding moral principle. She said the individual should "exist for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself".<ref>Wright, Darryl. Template:" 'A Human Society': Rand's Social Philosophy". In Template:Harvnb.</ref> Rand referred to egoism as "the virtue of selfishness" in her book of that title.Template:Sfn In it, she presented her solution to the is–ought problem by describing a meta-ethical theory that based morality in the needs of "man's survival qua man", which requires the use of a rational mind.Template:Sfn She condemned ethical altruism as incompatible with the requirements of human life and happiness,Template:Sfn and held the initiation of force was evil and irrational,Template:Sfn writing in Atlas Shrugged that "Force and mind are opposites".Template:Sfn

Rand's ethics and politics are the most criticized areas of her philosophy.Template:Sfn Several authors, including Robert Nozick and William F. O'Neill in two of the earliest academic critiques of her ideas,Template:Sfn said she failed in her attempt to solve the is–ought problem.Template:Sfn Critics have called her definitions of egoism and altruism biased and inconsistent with normal usage.Template:Sfn Critics from religious traditions oppose her atheism and her rejection of altruism.Template:Sfn

Rand's political philosophy emphasized individual rights, including property rights. She considered laissez-faire capitalism the only moral social system because in her view it was the only system based on protecting those rights.Template:Sfn Rand opposed collectivism and statism,<ref>Lewis, John David & Salmieri, Gregory. "A Philosopher on Her Times: Ayn Rand's Political and Cultural Commentary". In Template:Harvnb.</ref> which she considered to include many specific forms of government, such as communism, fascism, socialism, theocracy, and the welfare state.<ref>Ghate, Onkar. Template:" 'A Free Mind and a Free Market Are Corollaries': Rand's Philosophical Perspective on Capitalism". In Template:Harvnb.</ref> Her preferred form of government was a constitutional republic that is limited to the protection of individual rights.Template:Sfn Although her political views are often classified as conservative or libertarian, Rand preferred the term "radical for capitalism". She worked with conservatives on political projects but disagreed with them over issues such as religion and ethics.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Rand rejected anarchism as a naive theory based in subjectivism that would lead to collectivism in practice,Template:Sfn and denounced libertarianism, which she associated with anarchism.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn

Several critics, including Nozick, have said her attempt to justify individual rights based on egoism fails.<ref>Miller, Fred D., Jr. & Mossoff, Adam. "Ayn Rand's Theory of Rights: An Exposition and Response to Critics". In Template:Harvnb</ref> Others, like libertarian philosopher Michael Huemer, have gone further, saying that her support of egoism and her support of individual rights are inconsistent positions.<ref>Miller, Fred D., Jr. & Mossoff, Adam. "Ayn Rand's Theory of Rights: An Exposition and Response to Critics". In Template:Harvnb</ref> Some critics, like Roy Childs, have said that her opposition to the initiation of force should lead to support of anarchism, rather than limited government.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn

Relationship to other philosophersEdit

Template:Multiple image Except for Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas and classical liberals, Rand was sharply criticalTemplate:Sfn of most philosophers and philosophical traditions known to her.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Acknowledging Aristotle as her greatest influence,Template:Sfn Rand remarked that in the history of philosophy she could only recommend "three A's"—Aristotle, Aquinas, and Ayn Rand.Template:Sfn In a 1959 interview with Mike Wallace, when asked where her philosophy came from, she responded: "Out of my own mind, with the sole acknowledgement of a debt to Aristotle, the only philosopher who ever influenced me."Template:Sfn

In an article for the Claremont Review of Books, political scientist Charles Murray criticized Rand's claim that her only "philosophical debt" was to Aristotle. He asserted her ideas were derivative of previous thinkers such as John Locke and Friedrich Nietzsche.Template:Sfn Rand took early inspiration from Nietzsche,Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn and scholars have found indications of this in Rand's private journals. In 1928, she alluded to his idea of the "superman" in notes for an unwritten novel whose protagonist was inspired by the murderer William Edward Hickman, whom Rand observed early in the trial before his guilt was decided by jury.Template:Sfn

There are other indications of Nietzsche's influence in passages from the first edition of We the Living, which Rand later revised,<ref>Loiret-Prunet, Valerie. "Ayn Rand and Feminist Synthesis: Rereading We the Living". In Template:Harvnb.</ref> and in her overall writing style.Template:Sfn<ref>Sheaffer, Robert. "Rereading Rand on Gender in the Light of Paglia". In Template:Harvnb.</ref> By the time she wrote The Fountainhead, Rand had turned against Nietzsche's ideas,Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn and the extent of his influence on her even during her early years is disputed.Template:Sfn Rand's views also may have been influenced by the promotion of egoism among the Russian nihilists, including Chernyshevsky and Dmitry Pisarev,Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn although there is no direct evidence that she read them.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn

Rand considered Immanuel Kant her philosophical opposite and "the most evil man in mankind's history".Template:Sfn She believed his epistemology undermined reason and his ethics opposed self-interest.<ref>Salmieri, Gregory. "An Introduction to the Study of Ayn Rand". In Template:Harvnb.</ref> Philosophers George Walsh and Fred Seddon have argued she misinterpreted Kant and exaggerated their differences.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn She was critical of Plato and viewed his differences with Aristotle on questions of metaphysics and epistemology as the primary conflict in the history of philosophy.<ref>Lennox, James G. Template:" 'Who Sets the Tone for a Culture?' Ayn Rand's Approach to the History of Philosophy". In Template:Harvnb.</ref>

Rand's relationship with contemporary philosophers was mostly antagonistic. She was not an academic and did not participate in academic discourse.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn She was dismissive of critics and wrote about ideas she disagreed with in a polemical manner without in-depth analysis.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Academic philosophers viewed her negatively and dismissed her as an unimportant figure who should not be considered a philosopher, or given any serious response.Template:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn

Early academic reactionEdit

During Rand's lifetime, her work received little attention from academic scholars.Template:Sfn In 1967, John Hospers discussed Rand's ethical ideas in the second edition of his textbook, An Introduction to Philosophical Analysis. In 1967, Hazel Barnes included a chapter critiquing Objectivism in her book An Existentialist Ethics.Template:Sfn When the first full-length academic book about Rand's philosophy appeared in 1971, its author declared writing about Rand "a treacherous undertaking" that could lead to "guilt by association" for taking her seriously.Template:Sfn

A few articles about Rand's ideas appeared in academic journals before her death in 1982, many of them in The Personalist.Template:Sfn One of these was "On the Randian Argument" by libertarian philosopher Robert Nozick, who criticized her meta-ethical arguments.Template:Sfn In the same journal, other philosophers argued that Nozick misstated Rand's case.Template:Sfn In an 1978 article responding to Nozick, Douglas Den Uyl and Douglas B. Rasmussen defended her positions, but described her style as "literary, hyperbolic and emotional".Template:Sfn

After her death, interest in Rand's ideas increased gradually.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn The Philosophic Thought of Ayn Rand, a 1984 collection of essays about Objectivism edited by Den Uyl and Rasmussen, was the first academic book about Rand's ideas published after her death.Template:Sfn In one essay, political writer Jack Wheeler wrote that despite "the incessant bombast and continuous venting of Randian rage", Rand's ethics are "a most immense achievement, the study of which is vastly more fruitful than any other in contemporary thought".<ref>Wheeler, Jack. "Rand and Aristotle". In Template:Harvnb.</ref> In 1987, the Ayn Rand Society was founded as an affiliate of the American Philosophical Association.Template:Sfn

In a 1995 entry about Rand in Contemporary Women Philosophers, Jenny A. Heyl described a divergence in how different academic specialties viewed Rand. She said that Rand's philosophy "is regularly omitted from academic philosophy. Yet, throughout literary academia, Ayn Rand is considered a philosopher."Template:Sfn Writing in the 1998 edition of the Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, political theorist Chandran Kukathas summarized the mainstream philosophical reception of her work in two parts. He said most commentators view her ethical argument as an unconvincing variant of Aristotle's ethics, and her political theory "is of little interest" because it is marred by an "ill-thought out and unsystematic" effort to reconcile her hostility to the state with her rejection of anarchism.Template:Sfn In 1999, The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies, a peer-reviewed, multidisciplinary academic journal devoted to the study of Rand and her ideas, was established.Template:Sfn

21st-century academic reactionEdit

In 2009, historian Jennifer Burns identified "an explosion of scholarship" about Rand since 2000;Template:Sfn however, as of that year, few universities included Rand or Objectivism as a philosophical specialty or research area.Template:Sfn From 2002 to 2012, over 60 colleges and universities accepted grants from the charitable foundation of BB&T that required teaching Rand's ideas or works. In some cases, the grants were controversial or even rejected because of the requirement to teach about Rand.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn

In a 2010 essay for the Cato Institute, Huemer argued very few people find Rand's ideas convincing, especially her ethics. He attributed the attention she receives to her being a "compelling writer", especially as a novelist.Template:Sfn In 2012, the Pennsylvania State University Press agreed to take over publication of The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies,Template:Sfn and the University of Pittsburgh Press launched an "Ayn Rand Society Philosophical Studies" series based on the Society's proceedings.Template:Sfn The Fall 2012 update to the entry about Rand in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy said that "only a few professional philosophers have taken her work seriously".Template:Sfn

In 2012, political scientist Alan Wolfe dismissed Rand as a "nonperson" among academics, an attitude that writer Ben Murnane later described as "the traditional academic view" of Rand.Template:Sfn In a 2018 article for Aeon, philosopher Skye C. Cleary wrote: "Philosophers love to hate Ayn Rand. It's trendy to scoff at any mention of her." However, Cleary said that because many people take Rand's ideas seriously, philosophers "need to treat the Ayn Rand phenomenon seriously" and provide refutations rather than ignoring her.Template:Sfn

in 2020, Media critic Eric Burns said that "Rand is surely the most engaging philosopher of my lifetime",Template:Sfn but "nobody in the academe pays any attention to her, neither as an author nor a philosopher".Template:Sfn In 2020, the editor of a collection of critical essays about Rand said academics who disapproved of her ideas had long held "a stubborn resolve to ignore or ridicule" her work but that more were engaging with her work in recent years.Template:Sfn In 2023, The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies ceased publication.Template:Sfn

LegacyEdit

Popular interestEdit

File:Atlas Shrugged (1957 1st ed) - Ayn Rand.jpg
Atlas Shrugged has sold more than 10 million copies.Template:Sfn

With over 37Template:Nbsmillion copies sold Template:As of, Rand's books continue to be read widely.Template:SfnTemplate:Efn In 1991, a survey conducted for the Library of Congress and the Book of the Month Club asked club members to name the most influential book in their lives. Rand's Atlas Shrugged was the second most popular choice, after the Bible.Template:Sfn Although Rand's influence has been greatest in the United States, there has been international interest in her work.Template:Efn

Rand's contemporary admirers included fellow novelists, like Ira Levin, Kay Nolte Smith and L. Neil Smith. She influenced later writers like Erika Holzer, Terry Goodkind,Template:Sfn and comic book artist Steve Ditko.Template:Sfn Rand provided a positive view of business and subsequently many business executives and entrepreneurs have admired and promoted her work.Template:Sfn Businessmen such as John Allison of BB&T and Ed Snider of Comcast Spectacor have funded the promotion of Rand's ideas.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn

Television shows, movies, songs, and video games have referred to Rand and her works.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Throughout her life she was the subject of many articles in popular magazines,Template:Sfn as well as book-length critiques by authors such as the psychologist Albert EllisTemplate:Sfn and Trinity Foundation president John W. Robbins.Template:Sfn Rand or characters based on her figure prominently in novels by American authors,Template:Sfn including Kay Nolte Smith, Mary Gaitskill, Matt Ruff, and Tobias Wolff.Template:Sfn Nick Gillespie, former editor-in-chief of Reason, remarked: "Rand's is a tortured immortality, one in which she's as likely to be a punch line as a protagonist. Jibes at Rand as cold and inhuman run through the popular culture."Template:Sfn

Two movies have been made about Rand's life. A 1997 documentary film, Ayn Rand: A Sense of Life, was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.Template:Sfn The Passion of Ayn Rand, a 1999 television adaptation of the book of the same name, won several awards.Template:Sfn Rand's image appears on a 1999 U.S. postage stamp illustrated by artist Nick Gaetano.Template:Sfn

Rand's works, most commonly Anthem or The Fountainhead, are sometimes assigned as secondary school reading.<ref>Salmieri, Gregory. "An Introduction to the Study of Ayn Rand". In Template:Harvnb.</ref> Since 2002, the Ayn Rand Institute has provided free copies of Rand's novels to teachers who promise to include the books in their curriculum.Template:Sfn The Institute had distributed 4.5Template:Nbsmillion copies in the U.S. and Canada by the end of 2020.<ref name="ARI2020"/> In 2017, Rand was added to the required reading list for the A Level Politics exam in the United Kingdom.Template:Sfn

Political influenceEdit

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Although she rejected the labels "conservative" and "libertarian",Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Rand has had a continuing influence on right-wing politics and libertarianism.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Rand is often considered one of the three most important women, along with Rose Wilder Lane and Isabel Paterson, in the early development of modern American libertarianism.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn David Nolan, one founder of the Libertarian Party, said that "without Ayn Rand, the libertarian movement would not exist".Template:Sfn In his history of libertarianism, journalist Brian Doherty described her as "the most influential libertarian of the twentieth century to the public at large".Template:Sfn Political scientist Andrew Koppelman called her "the most widely read libertarian".Template:Sfn Historian Jennifer Burns referred to her as "the ultimate gateway drug to life on the right".Template:Sfn

The political figures who cite Rand as an influence are usually conservatives, often members of the Republican Party,Template:Sfn despite Rand taking some atypical positions for a conservative, like being pro-choice and an atheist.Template:Sfn She faced intense opposition from William F. Buckley Jr. and other contributors to the conservative National Review magazine, which published numerous criticisms of her writings and ideas.Template:Sfn Nevertheless, a 1987 article in The New York Times called her the Reagan administration's "novelist laureate".Template:Sfn Republican congressmen and conservative pundits have acknowledged her influence on their lives and have recommended her novels.Template:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn She has influenced some conservative politicians outside the U.S., such as Sajid Javid in the United Kingdom, Siv Jensen in Norway, and Ayelet Shaked in Israel.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn

File:TDTP08.JPG
A protester's sign at a 2009 Tea Party rally refers to John Galt, the hero of Rand's Atlas Shrugged.

The 2008 financial crisis renewed interest in her works, especially Atlas Shrugged, which some saw as foreshadowing the crisis.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Opinion articles compared real-world events with the novel's plot.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Signs mentioning Rand and her fictional hero John Galt appeared at Tea Party protests.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn There was increased criticism of her ideas, especially from the political left. Critics blamed the Great Recession on her support of selfishness and free markets, particularly through her influence on Alan Greenspan.Template:Sfn

In 2015, Adam Weiner said that through Greenspan, "Rand had effectively chucked a ticking time bomb into the boiler room of the US economy".Template:Sfn In 2019, Lisa Duggan said that Rand's novels had "incalculable impact" in encouraging the spread of neoliberal political ideas.Template:Sfn In 2021, Cass Sunstein said Rand's ideas could be seen in the tax and regulatory policies of the Trump administration, which he attributed to the "enduring influence" of Rand's fiction.Template:Sfn

Objectivist movementEdit

File:Leonard Peikoff (cropped).tiff
Rand's heir Leonard Peikoff co-founded the Ayn Rand Institute.

{{#invoke:Labelled list hatnote|labelledList|Main article|Main articles|Main page|Main pages}} After the closure of the Nathaniel Branden Institute, the Objectivist movement continued in other forms. In the 1970s, Peikoff began delivering courses on Objectivism.Template:Sfn In 1979, Peter Schwartz started a newsletter called The Intellectual Activist, which Rand endorsed.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn She also endorsed The Objectivist Forum, a bimonthly magazine founded by Objectivist philosopher Harry Binswanger, which ran from 1980 to 1987.Template:Sfn

In 1985, Peikoff worked with businessman Ed Snider to establish the Ayn Rand Institute, a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting Rand's ideas and works. In 1990, after an ideological disagreement with Peikoff, David Kelley founded the Institute for Objectivist Studies, now known as The Atlas Society.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn In 2001, historian John P. McCaskey organized the Anthem Foundation for Objectivist Scholarship, which provides grants for scholarly work on Objectivism in academia.Template:Sfn

Selected worksEdit

{{#invoke:Labelled list hatnote|labelledList|Main article|Main articles|Main page|Main pages}} Template:Col-float Fiction and drama

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NotesEdit

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ReferencesEdit

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Works citedEdit

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Further readingEdit

External linksEdit

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