Who Is John Galt? Well, He Sure As Hell Isn't You!

Let me preface this outright attack on Ayn Rand and all the mouth breathing lemmings who spout her pseudo-philosophical garbage by making a confession.  I actually really like Ms. Rand's books.  Really.  Not joking.  I think both Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead and to a lesser extent We The Living are great works of fiction (although Anthem is just self-congratulatory horseshit).  But, that is the point.  They are FICTION.  They are not relevant at all to the real world much less the basis of a political and social philosophy.

There was a lot of excitement, especially among the Tea Party set when the movie version of Rand's epic novel Atlas Shrugged was released in theaters.  The thought was that the movie version of the 1200+ page novel would introduce Rand's unique world view to a whole new and expanded audience.  I thought it a bit ironic that a philosophy that holds intellectualism and reason as its highest aim would need a movie to indoctrinate those too lazy to read a freaking novel.  Any of the Tea Party fascists who start quoting Rand's work now after seeing the movie remind me of the assholes in high school who were too lazy to read a novel for the book report and then were shocked when they received a failing grade because they didn't realize that the movie version of the Scarlett Letter didn't end the same way as the novel.

But the excitement surrounding the movie made me think about the amazing fact that such a morally bankrupt and priggish philosophy as Objectivism had managed to not only survive so long, but that it had gained a new following among the least likely people to identify with its ideals -- the Tea Party.  I can understand a bunch of Wall Street investment bank bastards using Rand's writings to justify their systemic destruction of the middle class through fraud and deceit, but when the same individuals who are being destroyed by these same bastards start adopting the same philosophy as their own, something has to be wrong.

Then it hit me.  Rand's novels are so well constructed and her writing so persuasive that the reader inevitably identifies with the protagonists in an incredibly strong fashion.  One might even think that the book is talking about them.  Of course for any rational person this feeling is fleeting as they quickly remember that this is indeed a work of fiction and that the real world is not that which Rand has created.  But, if you have such a demented sense of self-importance as many of those involved in the Tea Party movement seem to have, this becomes an actual part of your warped sense of reality.

So, in other words, Michelle Bachmann actually thinks that she is Dagny Taggart.  Donald Trump actually thinks that he is John Galt.  Hell, even that angry old fart at the Congressional town hall sitting in his Hoverround yelling through his oxygen tank to keep your damn government hands off of my Medicaid actually thinks that he is Hank Reardon.  Forget about the fact that you don't know that the Revolutionary War started in Massachusetts not New Hampshire.  Forget about the fact that you've declared bankruptcy multiple times to keep from paying your debts.  Forget about the fact that you are too stupid to understand that the very chair you are sitting in was paid for with taxpayer money.  You are a Creator and all of those "others" are the Looters keeping you from fulfilling your dreams.  If they would just get off of your back, all the riches in the world would be yours.  They are the ones that have been holding you back.

In a way, they aren't that different from Rand herself.  Ayn Rand was born Alisa Rosenbaum in Russia 10 years prior to the Bolshevik Revolution that ushered in an era of communism and decades of despotic rule in the Soviet Union.  After her family suffered great deprivation at the hands of communist rulers, they fled to the United States.  Rand's early childhood experiences under communism grew into a lifetime hatred of anything that had even a hint of communism and a zealous championing of its opposite economic philosophy of capitalism.  The fervor with which Rand professed the ideals of capitalism remind me of many of the people with whom I attended college.  She's very much like the upper middle class girl whose parents belonged to the local country club, who dated the quarterback and was prom and homecoming queen who on a whim takes a Womens' Studies class the second semester of her Freshman year and suddenly stops shaving her legs, smells of patchouli and constantly rants that I am part of the white, male, corporate, bourgeois establishment that must be destroyed by any means necessary.  Rand was just the Bizzarro World version.

Rand, like her modern tea party contemporaries fell very much short of the ideals that the characters in her novels presented.  Of course, you would never know that if you met her.  Rand saw herself as the leader of a movement that was going to save the world from the destructive forces of governments which she saw as standing in the way of business and creation by means of taxation, regulation and redistribution of wealth.  Her philosophy can be best summed up as "sharing is bad."  Although her philosophy is still used by many in power as a basis for their various policies, especially those on the right, Rand was never as successful or influential in her life as she herself believed.

But, Objectivism somehow keeps its hold in our society.  You can hear echoes of John Galt's seemingly endless speech which served as the climax of Atlas Shrugged everytime you see some jackass executive from Goldman-Sachs or J.P. Morgan going on about how government regulation stifles their ability to create innovative new financial vehicles that diversify risk and create efficiencies in the market (translation: they keep us from screwing the consumer repeatedly by fraudulently cooking the books and inflating our bottom line) or everytime you see a right wing politician going on about how the government is attacking your freedom with this or that law (translation: trying to protect the consumer from being repeatedly screwed by the jackass executives at Goldman-Sachs or J.P. Morgan).

I encourage you, though, to read Rand's books.  They are quite entertaining.  Or, if you must, watch the movie (it's in three parts, so it might actually be more painful than reading the book).  Just remember -- this is the real world and you aren't John Galt.