Daily Archives: October 14, 2019

When she was young, author Ayn Rand had a schoolgirl crush on a man who murdered, dismembered and disemboweled 12-year-old Marion Parker, before dumping her body on the street, after promising to return her alive to her parents. That 1927 murder was big news, especially in Los Angeles, where the crime had occurred, and it certainly got the attention of Rand, who had just moved to the city after emigrating from the Soviet Union. She immediately began work on a novel, which she called "Little Street,"with a hero based on the murderer, William Hickman.

While Rand's modern-day fans are quick to argue that Rand didn't endorse the murder,it's safe to say she thought highly of Hickman himself and sneered at the people who denounced him, writing that they exhibited "the mobs murderous desire to revenge its hurt vanity against a man who dared to be alone." This champion of individualism said that Hickman's "degeneracy" showed "how society can wreck an exceptional being." She got to work sketching a protagonist based on Hickman, one with a "wonderful, free, light consciousness" resulting from "the absolute lack of social instinct or herd feeling" and having "no organ for understanding, the necessity, meaning, or importance of other people."

Rand eventually scrapped the idea for "Little Street," but most historians argue that she reworked her idea of the individualistic, contemptuous hero into her later novels, "The Fountainhead" and "Atlas Shrugged." These two books, and Rand's writings on her selfishness-oriented philosophy she deemed "Objectivism," have become the backbone of modern conservatism, a pseudo-intellectual rationalization beloved by Republicans such as former House Speaker Paul Ryan or Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky for a reactionary movement that rose up to reject the feminist and antiracist movements of the 20th century.

In her purple prose, Rand romanticized the capitalist predator as a handsome, virile man whose towering intellect justifies his massive ego and disregard for the common masses. It's why conservatives, angry about the election of Barack Obama, started publicly identifying with John Galt, who is the great-man-among-parasites hero of "Atlas Shrugged."

The question that haunts that novel is, "Who is John Galt?" Now we finally have the answer: Donald Trump.

It turns out a philosophy of radical selfishness is not sexy or heroic, but comes in the form of a half-literate narcissist, cheered on by a bunch of sweatpants-clad fascists as he commits crimes in service of conspiracy theories he hopes will trick the ignorant masses into electing him again.

"In the abstract, Rand would have said that her ideal man upholds reason and capitalism. Based on how this plays out in her books, her ideal man is rich, sexually aggressive, sociopathically unconcerned with what others think of him," author Adam Lee, who spent years blogging his close reading of "Atlas Shrugged,"told Salon.

"The real message Rand's works convey is that her protagonists are exempt from the puny standards of law and morality that the common people try to tie them down with," Lee added, noting that the heroes of Rand's bookscommit rape, mock the people who will die in their shoddily built housing and threaten violence to punish wives who disapprove of their adultery.

Trump's time in politics has been a true test of Rand's theory, which has been embraced by modern Republicans, that this kind of sociopathic selfishness is what compels men to greatness of the sorts that we ordinary people, with our plebeian concerns about moral duty to others and the common good, cannot understand. After all, one thing that is certain about Trump is that, like a true Randian hero, he acts only for himself and to satisfy his own ego, and has no concern for others outside of how they serve his interests.

The results, it's safe to say, are underwhelming. Trump's Randian philosophy of pure self-interest is, of course, why he felt it wise to abandon the traditional point of international diplomacy, which is to advance national interests, in favor of viewing other nations merely as resources to be exploited for his own personal and political gain. That's how he ended up on the phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, extorting the man to pony up manufactured conspiracy theories about a Democratic presidential candidate in exchange for military aid.

The fallout has, needless to say, been a little less John Galt and a little more Richard Nixon ranting pathetically about his enemies. Trump's blatant lies and grasping excuses for his behavior don't cause the heart to soar so much as the eyes to avert in embarrassment. As the outlines of Trump's conspiracy, with the clownish Rudy Giuliani at its center, come into view, the picture is less that of triumphant individualists sticking it to the small-brained masses than of a bunch of idiots who have vastly overrated their own abilities to pull off pointless crimes.

Nor has Trump's Randian attitude towards his henchmen, in which he shows them no weak-minded loyalty or gratitude for their service, worked out quite as well for him as it's supposed to. Trump's firing national security adviser John Bolton, himself no paragon of social virtue, was the move of a classic Randian hero. Bolton, after all, had the temerity to question the great man's judgment regarding matters like the Ukraine extortion, and had to be dispatched with contempt. But now reports that paint Bolton favorably (in itself a remarkable accomplishment) and make Trump look like a blithering idiot are worming their way into the news, suggesting that Trump's unwillingness to keep the good opinion of his henchmen is coming back around to bite him.

Conservatives like Paul Ryan may wrinkle their noses at Trump's uncouth demeanor and petty behavior, but this is what they signed up for in exalting Ayn Rand as some great philosopher. Despite the high-minded rhetoric, the lived reality of selfishness as a philosophy is less like the fictional figures of Howard Roark and John Galt, and more like the incoherent, small-minded sociopathy of Donald Trump. The great man of the Objectivist imagination has always been a silly fantasy. But it's particularly rich and satisfying that now that the Ayn Rand fanboys finally have a leader who lives out their supposed ideals, the result is the comic, pathetic and catastrophic figure now disgracing the White House.

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Right-wingers finally got their Ayn Rand hero as president and it's this guy - Salon

Two years ago, a very prominent national newspaper asked the Ayn Rand Institute to write a piece describing what Rand (who died in 1982) might have thought about President Trump. In the end, the newspaper decided not to publish it, likely because our viewpoint was too radical for their readership. However, they encouraged us to publish it ourselves, which we did on November 6, 2017, on the Institutes blog. Because evaluating Trump accurately is as important today as it was then, we are presenting an updated and lightly edited version here on our journal, New Ideal.

No one can speak for the dead. But as an expert on Ayn Rands philosophy, Im often asked what Rand would have thought of President Trump, especially because there are periodic attempts to link Trump to Rand and her ideas.

My wager is that were Ayn Rand alive today, almost three years into Trumps presidency, she would condemn the whole Trump phenomenon. Far from seeing him or his administrations actions as even partially influenced by her philosophy, she would see Donald Trump as the kind of political figure whose rise she had foreseen and warned us against.

To appreciate why, we need to know something about her view of the countrys state. From the publication of Atlas Shrugged in 1957 to her death in 1982, a constant theme in her writings was that we as a nation were in a state of intellectual and cultural bankruptcy.

Rand held that the Democrats, liberals and political left had abandoned the intellect. Marx, although evil, was, Rand thought, the last intellectual voice worth confronting. When the Marxists entrenched in academia gave way or morphed into the likes of B. F. Skinner, John Rawls, Herbert Marcuse, and a sundry list of postmodernists preaching ethnic determinism, egalitarianism, the impossibility of objectivity and the alleged evils of industrialization and the need to go back to nature, the pretense to intellectuality of these anti-Enlightenment figures was at an end.

This created an opening for the true heirs of the Enlightenment, the advocates of reason, freedom and capitalism, to pick up the discarded banner of the intellect. They refused.

A few months before her death, Rand told an audience of her fans, no doubt to the surprise of many, that she didnt vote for Ronald Reagan against Jimmy Carter, even though she regarded Carter as a small-town power luster. There is a limit, she told them, to the notion of voting for the lesser of two evils.

Rand did welcome Reagans strong language toward Soviet Russia and his promises to cut spending and taxes. But she warned that his invitation of the so-called Moral Majority into the halls of power would be a long-range disaster. By tying the (supposed) advocacy of freedom and capitalism to, in Rands words, the anti-intellectuality of militant mystics, who proclaim that aborting an embryo is murder and creationism is science, Reagans presidency would discredit the intellectual case for freedom and capitalism and embolden the countrys anti-intellectual, authoritarian mentalities.

Enter Donald Trump.

Trumps salient characteristic as a political figure is anti-intellectuality. Because Rand saw this mentality as on the rise (she called it the anti-conceptual mentality), she had a lot to say about it, and its illuminating how much of it fits Trump.

Trump makes no distinction between truth and falsity, between statements backed by evidence and statements unsupported by any evidence. This is why you cant catch him in a lie. He doesnt care.

This is a demanding responsibility. To be intellectual requires real independence of judgment and enduring honesty and integrity.

Its not just that Trump lacks these virtues; in comparison to, say, Jefferson, Washington or Madison, most of todays politicians do. Its that Trump projects disdain for these virtues.

For years now, news outlets have cataloged Trumps lies. But to call them lies misses the point.

A liar retains some respect for the truth: he tries to conceal his lies, weave a web of deception and make it difficult for his victims to discover the facts. Trump does none of this.

He states, for instance, that his inauguration crowd was the largest ever when photos of his and past inaugurations are easily accessible. He declares to a national audience that nobody has more respect for women than I do, nobody when the Billy Bush tape of him boasting that he grabs women by the pussy is fresh in everyones mind. In defense of his Saturday Charlottesville statement, he says that unlike others he waits for the facts to come in before making judgments when his Twitter outbursts are read by millions.

Trump makes no distinction between truth and falsity, between statements backed by evidence and statements unsupported by any evidence. This is why you cant catch him in a lie. He doesnt care.

READ ALSO: Bernie Sanders, like Trump, Is Hostile to a Free Press

The phrase, of course, in this context is hollow. By his own admission, Trump was part of the swamp, a master at playing every side of a corrupt political system. To drain the swamp would be to get rid of people like him not elect them to the presidency. But somebody suggested to Trump that he use the phrase. I said, Oh, that is so hokey. That is so terrible. And I said, all right, Ill try it. So, like, a month ago, I said, Drain the swamp, and the place went crazy. I said, Whoa, whats this? Then I said it again. And then I started saying it like I meant it, right? And then I said it I started loving it, and the place loved it.

Closely connected to this disdain for the truth is a complete amoralism. The normal pattern of self-appraisal, Rand observes, requires reference to some abstract value or virtue, such as I am good because I am rational or I am good because I am honest. But the entire realm of living up to abstract principles and standards is unknown to an anti-intellectual mentality. The phenomenon of judging himself by such standards, therefore, is alien. Instead, Rand argues, the implicit pattern of all his estimates is: Its good because I like it Its right because I did it Its true because I want it to be true.

Rand argued that in a period of intellectual and cultural bankruptcy, if the anti-intellectual mentality is on the rise, tribalism will be ascending culturally and, politically, a country will drift toward authoritarianism and, ultimately, dictatorship.

The self-centeredness that an amoralist exhibits, Rand holds, is centered on self-doubt; he therefore exhibits a constant and pathetic need to be loved, to be seen as a big shot and as the greatest ever. Observe Trumps steady refrain that hes accomplishing feats no other president has or could, Washington, Madison and Lincoln included. One suspects that the fake Time magazine hanging in Mar-a-Lago with Trump on the cover was as much to assuage Trumps anxieties as to impress the gullible and sycophantic among his guests.

The place that loyalty to abstract standards occupies in a moral persons mind, Rand argues, is typically replaced in an anti-intellectual mentality by loyalty to the group. Observe Trumps special focus on this. Loyalty is desirable if it has been earned. But Trump demands it upfront. As former FBI Director James Comey and others have remarked, a pledge of loyalty was among the first things Trump asked of them.

The wider phenomenon this demand for loyalty represents is a profound tribalism, a world divided into the loyal and the disloyal, insiders and outsiders, us versus them. To get a flavor, listen to any Trump rally.

Rand argued that in a period of intellectual and cultural bankruptcy, if the anti-intellectual mentality is on the rise, tribalism will be ascending culturally and, politically, a country will drift toward authoritarianism and, ultimately, dictatorship.

Political authoritarians rely on scapegoats, who are said to be responsible for all the countrys troubles. The Communists demonized the bourgeoisie, the Nazis demonized the Jews, and the Socialists demonized the owners of private property. Hand us the reins of power, they said, and well get rid of these undesirables.

Unless we are ready to radically rethink our cultures fundamental ideas, our long-term trajectory is set and will play out. But the choice is ours that is the message of Atlas Shrugged.

Sales of Atlas Shrugged soared during the 20078 financial crisis, in part because people wondered how Rand could have foreseen Americas economic collapse. Sales should be soaring again because the book is not primarily about economic collapse, but about cultural and intellectual bankruptcy.

At the novels start, we witness a crumbling world, with posturing intellectuals who have long ago abandoned the intellect but who continue to preach irrational, shopworn ideas, which everyone mouths but no one fully believes or dares challenge. Part of the point of the story is that these pseudo-intellectuals will eventually be replaced by their progeny: people who more openly dispense with the intellect and who are more explicitly boorish, brutish and tribal, i.e., anti-intellectual mentalities.

READ ALSO: Why Economic Nationalism Is UnAmerican

The only way to prevent this kind of political and cultural disintegration, Rand thought, was to challenge the irrationalism, tribalism, determinism and identity politics at the heart of our intellectual life, propagated by the so-called left and right and by too many others as well. We need to realize that whether the appeal is to ethnicity or gender or faith or family or genes as the shaper of ones soul and whether the demand is to sacrifice the rich to the poor, the poor to the rich, the able to the needy, whites to blacks, blacks to whites, individuals to the nation or sinners to God all of it is corrupt. We are rational beings, who are capable of choosing a logical course in life and who should be pursing our own individual happiness. We must learn to say the oath taken by the heroes in Atlas Shrugged: I swear by my life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.

Unless we are ready to radically rethink our cultures fundamental ideas, with the same intensity of thought our Founding Fathers exerted in rethinking government, our long-term trajectory is set and will play out. But the choice is ours that is the message of Atlas Shrugged.

Thus I think Rand would have said that a President Trump is a predictable outcome, but not an inevitable one.

Image: Evan El-Amin / Shutterstock.com

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Why Ayn Rand Would Have Despised a President Trump - New Ideal

The Hon. Gordon D. Sondland, U.S. ambassador to the European Union, finds himself close to powerand an impeachment investigation.

Sondland was scheduled to provide closed-door congressional testimony Oct. 8 about his role in President Donald J. Trump's communications with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky regarding former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter.

The U.S. Department of State, however, abruptly canceled his testimonyfor now. In a statement, Sondland said he was "profoundly disappointed."House impeachment investigators are trying to determine what Sondland knows about the Trump administration's efforts to get Ukraine to investigate Biden, Trump's leading challenger in 2020.

The impeachment proceedings have resulted in national attention for Sondland, 62. He was already well known in Portland business, political and philanthropic circles. A company he founded, Provenance Hotels, owns or operates six Portland properties, including the Heathman Hotel and the Hotels Lucia and deLuxe. He served as CEO there before joining the State Department. He's also served on a variety of boards, including the Oregon Health & Science University Foundation and the Portland Art Museum, and has contributed generously to politicians of both parties.

But Sondland, who grew up in Mercer Island, Wash., has never registered to vote in Oregon, although he spends much of his time in Portland, where his wife lives and his two children grew up. Sondland's voting address remains the Hotel Theodore, a Seattle property his company acquired more than 30 years ago. The Seattle Times remarked on that paradox in a profile last week. "Sondland is not a household name in Seattle, or even in state GOP politics, although he is a major civic and power player in Oregon," the Times wrote.

In fact, he's half of a Portland power couple. Sondland's wife, Katherine J. Durant, is a real estate investor and a registered Democrat. They live in a $2.5 million West Hills home, where the couple has regularly hosted political fundraisers.

Here are some things Portlanders may not knowor have forgottenabout Sondland.

He drives a hard bargain. In April 2005, the Portland Development Commission rolled out the latest plan for a publicly owned headquarters hotel adjacent to the Oregon Convention Center. Sondland, whose company's Portland hotels are on the west side of the Willamette River, opposed the move. After Sondland's company and its allies fought Metro's headquarters hotel for a decadeincluding filing lawsuits to block itSondland's attorney suggested in a May 2015 letter that Metro end its partnership with the Hyatt Hotels Corporation and instead allow his company to own and operate the hotel. In the end, Sondland's company agreed to end its opposition to the project in exchange for an adjacent parking lot, appraised at $1.94 million.

He and his wife are generous. The Sondland Durant Foundation has given millions over the past three decades, much of it locally. In 2008, the couple's foundation gave $1 million to provide children free admission to the Portland Art Museum; in 2009, the foundation gave $50,000 to save Portland Parks & Recreation's summer concerts. More recently, they gave $50,000 to the Oregon Harbor of Hope, a Portland navigation center for homeless people. They also send their money elsewhere. In 2017, tax filings show, Sondland and Durant's foundation gave $1.5 million to Duke University, where their son, Max, is a member of the class of 2020. That gift follows a $100,000 gift to Duke in 2016.

He doesn't wilt under criticism. In 2010, residents of Hayden Island became fed up with a string of booming lottery delis they said brought crime to their neighborhood. The neighbors focused their ire on Sondland and Durant, the delis' landlords. Sondland's response? He publicly mulled renting some idle Hayden Island space to a strip club. He defended his thinking to The Oregonian's Steve Duin. "You're implying that because I serve on the art museum board, which is something I'm doing for the community, that somehow carries the responsibility to encumber my real estate," Sondland told Duin. "I don't understand the connection. That doesn't make any sense to me." (The couple didn't rent to the strip joint.)

Like Trump, Sondland showed an interest in bringing ice skating to the masses. In 1986, Trump took over Wollman Rink, the then-decrepit public skating rink in New York's Central Park. In 2004, when Sondland served as the president of the board of Pioneer Courthouse Square, he expressed a willingness to allow construction of a temporary rink in the square, a novelty favored by downtown business interests but received icily by the public, which killed the idea.

Sondland and Durant are serious Ayn Rand devotees. The couple share an affection for the late novelist and Objectivist philosopher, who emphasized pursuing one's self-interest. One of Durant's companies is named Atlas Investmentsafter Rand's best-known novel, Atlas Shruggedand another of her companies owns a downtown Portland building called "The Galt." (John Galt is the book's main character.) Sondland shared his political philosophy in a 2012 interview with The Oregonian about the city of Portland's proposed arts tax. "I prefer lower taxes and smaller government," Sondland said, "but in this case, I don't consider it a product of larger government. I consider the arts part of the larger community."

Democrats put Durant in a position of enormous authority. In 2005, Gov. Ted Kulongoski appointed Katy Durant to the Oregon Investment Council, the five-member board that decides how to invest more than $100 billion in state pension funds. Durant served under three Democratic governors, ending her service in December 2016. Her exit letter to Gov. Kate Brown chastising the state for doing too little to shore up its then-$22 billion unfunded pension liability gave rise to speculation she might someday run for governor herself.

Sondland is politically flexible. In 2002, Sondland served on the transition team for then-Gov.-elect Kulongoski. The incoming Democrat nominated Sondland to the Oregon Film board, where he served for 13 years, expanding the agency's subsidy of film and TV production. Sondland also supported Kulongoski's Democratic successor, John Kitzhaber. He and his companies donated nearly $16,000 to Kitzhaber's 2014 re-election campaign. In February 2013, Sondland hosted Kitzhaber and first lady Cylvia Hayes at a wine country dinner. "Thanks to you and Cylvia for schlepping out to Dundee," Sondland wrote in a follow-up email. "I feel confident you have the full support of every single person at that table."

That willingness to support Democrats did not extend to Gov. Kate Brown. Sondland and Durant gave Brown's opponent, state Rep. Knute Buehler (R-Bend), $60,000 last year.

Sondland supports higher education. In addition to the OHSU Foundation, he has served on the Board of Visitors for the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University, but according to a University of Washington spokeswoman, he left UW in 1978 after three years without graduating.

He wasn't always a Trump supporter. In 2004, Sondland supported President George W. Bush. In 2008, he supported Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). In 2012, he backed now-Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah). In 2016, he initially supported former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush. Those men all later panned Trump. And in August 2016, after Trump won the GOP nomination, Sondland pulled out of a scheduled Seattle fundraiser after Trump savaged a Muslim American military family.

"In light of Mr. Trump's treatment of the Khan family and the fact his constantly evolving positions diverge from their personal beliefs and values on so many levels, neither Mr. Sondland nor [Provenance Hotels president Bashar] Wali can support [Trump's] candidacy," Provenance spokeswoman Kate Buska told WW then. (Sondland later donated $1 million to help pay for Trump's inaugurationnot in his own name but through four limited liability companies.)

Sondland is active in local politicsexcept in the most basic way. One of Sondland's companies gave $5,000 to support a bond measure last year to fund affordable housing. He's given money to Mayor Ted Wheeler, Commissioner Nick Fish and, before them, Mayor Sam Adams. He's active in Oregon governors' races and ballot measuresbut what he's never done in Oregon is vote. For decades, his voting address has been a Seattle hotel, and Oregon elections officials confirmed Oct. 4 he's never registered to vote here.

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Eleven Things You May Not Know About Gordon Sondland - Willamette Week

There have been so many dang debates in Spokane this election season that its hard to tell whose heads are swimming the most: the candidates, the voters or the journalists.

I cant remember if it was Steven Tyler or Ayn Rand who said that anything worth doing is worth overdoing, but judging from my phones musical library, a solid guess is Aerosmith. Of course, Shakespeare noted its possible to have too much of a good thing. Or maybe that was Bon Jovi.

It doesnt really matter.

What matters is that there has been a ton of debates across Spokane this fall. Its hard to argue thats anything but a good thing. Knowing where candidates stand has always been important, but feels even more important at this exact moment.

Over the past several weeks, local candidates have been asked a whole lot of questions by a whole lot of different groups. And theyve been super specific. There have been topical debates focused on everything from homelessness to climate change to business growth.

But with ballots dropping this week, you likely still have questions. You cant really trust any candidate until you know what they order when theyre at a fast-food restaurant. Or maybe thats just me.

Regardless, well all have a chance Tuesday to catch up with the candidates for Spokane mayor and City Council president before we begin to fill out our ballots. The Spokesman-Review and KHQ will host a special edition of our popular Northwest Passages Pints and Politics community forum series that evening at The Bing.

Tickets are free, but required, and are available at Spokane7Tickets.com. All seats are general admission and doors open at 4p.m.

The event will begin at 5 p.m. with a discussion between council president candidates Breean Beggs and Cindy Wendle. Mayoral candidates Ben Stuckart and Nadine Woodward will follow at 6 p.m. Spokesman-Review reporter Adam Shanks and KHQs Sean Owsley will co-host the event, with the mayoral candidates being aired live on KHQ from 6 to 6:30 p.m. The discussion between Woodward and Stuckart will continue at The Bing past the end of the live television broadcast at 6:30.

The City Council president exchange, as well as the entire mayoral discussion, will be streamed online and available on both KHQs and The Spokesman-Reviews Facebook pages.

The goal is for this to be much more of a discussion than a debate. Over the past several years, our nation has shown incredible skill at being able to yell at each other, when what we need a whole lot more of is discussion. So if youre coming angry, do us all a favor on Tuesday and stay at home and just watch it on TV or on the interwebs.

That doesnt mean you cant disagree. Disagreement, passion and logic are all key ingredients of a healthy political discourse. Tater tots are a nice bonus, which is what Id order, if anyone asks.

What this all really means is there is another way to disagree than the way our national political parties do, which is with a healthy dose of meanness seasoned with a dash of the impersonal to help make their point hurt even more.

If its true that all politics are local, then lets show the folks over in that other Washington how we do it on this side of the country.

The change has to start somewhere. Why not here?

Thats been the goal of nearly every Northwest Passages event weve hosted over the past couple of years: How do we learn how to talk again as a community and stop all of the yelling? Theres a reason why our events sell out now because the discussions are healthy, not destructive.

And theyre fun.

Plus, we serve alcohol.

People who run for office, especially a local office, almost always do it because they love their community and want to try to help it be better tomorrow than it is today. They may have no clue how to actually do that, but theyre typically running for the right reasons.

Thats why regardless of whether you win or lose, if youre coming from a positive place, its such an honorable thing to run for a local office.

This is why you should join us at The Bing. The stage is going to be filled with people who genuinely care about our hometown, some with studio-quality hair and others with hair a little more like mine.

We need to hear them out on multiple issues. We need to ask them questions. And they need to answer.

It just doesnt have to be incensed, indignant and inflamed.

Marcus Aurelius the last of Romes five good emperors said that peace, stability and growth come from knowing that you need to calm down.

Wait, that might also be Taylor Swift. But theyre both right.

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Rob Curley: Hearing the candidates one more time before you vote, only this time with a little more discussion and a little less debate - The...

In times of economic stress, it is good to know the basics of personal finance.

Many people turn to books for help, so we decided to go back and review three of the most popular finance books of the last 15 years: Suze Ormans The Nine Steps to Financial Freedom (Currency, $16.99); Dave Ramseys The Total Money Makeover (Nelson Books, $26.99); and Robert T. Kiyosakis Rich Dad, Poor Dad (Plata Publishing, $8.99).

They all have something worthwhile to offer, but after rereading them, I found that all had a glaring omission: a lack of substantive advice on investing. You will have to go elsewhere for an in-depth discussion of how to set up a portfolio and choose among stocks, bonds, exchange-traded funds or mutual funds.

What all three books do emphasize is the need to buttress your finances by doing such things as reducing debt and expenses. And they share a constant refrain: You are ultimately responsible for your own financial success.

The authors have different takes on how to succeed, though. Ms. Orman says trust your instincts. Mr. Ramsey says relentlessly eliminate every last shred of debt. And Mr. Kiyosaki says emulate the rich, who have figured out how to have money work for them.

Oddly, for books centered on bolstering wealth, all three advocate contributing to charity. They say this is the right thing to do in itself, but they also say its worth doing on a spiritual level: The more you share with the universe, they contend, the more the universe will share with you.

Why have the books been so popular? The spiritual content may account for some of it. But the powerful media presence of all three authors has certainly helped.

Ms. Orman had a show on CNBC for more than a decade and now makes corporate speeches on personal finance. Mr. Ramsey has a syndicated radio show, and Mr. Kiyosaki appears frequently on television and conducts seminars.

As for quality, Ms. Ormans book is the best of the three for standard financial issues, though each has an undeniable appeal.

The good things about Ms. Ormans book start with her ability to reduce financial planning to its basics, and with her sensible suggestions on how to reach your personal goals.

Unrealistic budget cuts, like unrealistic diets, never work, she writes. Pare back modestly here and there, she says, rather than try to make big trims. And Ms. Orman emphasizes often-overlooked aspects of adult life like writing a proper will and appointing someone who will be able make health care decisions for you, in case, at some point, you cant.

While she doesnt offer detailed financial advice here, Ms. Orman, a former stockbroker, does recommend that you own index funds and diversify your holdings.

Unfortunately, the book is a bit out of date. It was first published in 1997, hasnt been revised since 2012 and contains references to events like the Dow closing at 11,000. That last happened in 2010.

Her tone is supportive and intimate, and it frequently veers into the ethereal.

Most unconventional idea: Money is a living entity and it responds to energy exactly the same way you do. It is drawn to those who welcome it, those who respect it.

Questionable advice: Even if you own just one mutual fund, your money is still quite diversified, because you own a little of everything theyre invested in.

That depends on the fund you own. If your only holding is an actively managed small-cap mutual fund, all you own are parts of small-cap companies preferred by that fund manager. You are far from diversified.

Representative sentence: When it comes to money, freedom starts to happen when what you do, think and say are one.

Mr. Ramsey has one major theme, which he hammers home until you want to scream. To the exclusion of virtually everything, he says, eliminate debt.

The only possible exception he allows is a small mortgage that you can easily afford (even then he urges that you pay that off quickly).

If you have any debt, even if your employer will match the first 3 percent you put into your 401(k) annually, Mr. Ramsey says, you should not take advantage of the match. He says it is better to put that money toward what you owe.

Financially, that makes no sense, unless you are paying interest charges of greater than 100 percent on what you borrowed. If your employer is matching your retirement contribution, you are getting a 100 percent return on what you put in. Yet Mr. Ramsey says that while he understands the math, being debt-free is more important.

I dont agree. Advising people to forgo their companys retirement match is one of the many things I didnt like about the book, which was originally published in 2003 and has been updated several times since. The last revision was in 2013.

Mr. Ramsey seemed to have trouble finding enough to say. On the bottom of every page you will find this line: If you live like no one else, later you can live like no one else.

That epigram would be just fine, if stated once. But the constant repetition seems contrived to fill space, as does the unusually large type. (Yes, it was nice that I did not have to use my reading glasses, but still.) Even with those features, the book is barely over 200 pages, not counting 20 pages of worksheets and an index.

His tone is consistently stern and no-nonsense.

Most unconventional idea: Pay off your smallest debt first, even if the other money you owe has a higher interest rate. The quick wins will help you build momentum.

Questionable advice: You can withdraw 8 percent of your retirement savings annually and not outlive your money.

Most experts say a safe annual withdrawal rate is much lower, no more than about 4 percent or, using careful rules, perhaps 5 percent.

Representative sentence: I was given a calling: to show people the truth about debt and money and to give them the hope and tools necessary to set themselves free financially.

Mr. Kiyosaki reminds me of Ayn Rand. He says you should focus relentlessly on achieving total independence from the crowd financial independence, in Mr. Kiyosakis case.

He presents his financial tenets in a narrative structure that resembles a novel, contrasting what he learned from his biological father (get a secure job, work hard, play it safe) and his other dad, a rich entrepreneur who forged an independent financial path while living below his means.

The book was first published in 1997 and updated, most recently, in 2017. As it unwinds, you see Mr. Kiyosaki, who served in the military, shift from a job as a Xerox salesman to his vocation as an investor, ending up squarely on his rich dads path. He soon buys real estate to minimize his dependence on a paycheck and begins to shelter income and minimize taxes by setting up corporations.

Own things that generate wealth, he says. In addition to income-producing real estate, he says, that includes stocks, bonds and royalty-generating intellectual property (inventions, books and the like).

Despite the brisk narrative, the book has a ponderous tone: It reads like a lecture from an economics professor.

Most unconventional idea: Dont focus on your job or career. Think primarily about building personal wealth.

Questionable advice: With low interest rates, and an uncertain stock market, the old adages of saving and investing for the long term make no sense.

Saving and investing for the long term are exactly what most experts say you should do.

Representative sentence: The main cause of poverty or financial struggle is fear and ignorance, not the economy, the government or the rich.

While the lack of detail on investing is disappointing and the perspective is often quirky and sometimes questionable, all three books offer sprinklings of solid counsel: Eliminate debt. Live below your means. Look for ways to supplement your income.

Thats always good advice.

As is this, which came from my immigrant grandfather: Dig your well before youre thirsty.

What he meant was prepare for the inevitable while you have time.

These books are flawed, but if they teach people that much, they have real value.

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Reconsidering the Advice in 3 Popular Personal Finance Books - The New York Times