Category Archives: Ayn Rand

The Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), part of the $2 trillion Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security package (CARES), is intended to blunt the economic damage from the current pandemic. As CNBC reports, the payouts include a $5-10 million loan for the Archdiocese of New York, $350,000 to $1 million to the Ayn Rand Institute and $1-2 million for the Joseph Kushner Hebrew Academy, named after the son-in-law of President Trump. The media payouts were also of interest.

Forbes Media bagged at least $5 million, according to CNBC and the Washington Times got at least $1 million. The Washingtonian and the Daily Caller both got at least $350,000, and The American Prospect received at least $150,000. While propping up media, the PPP payouts did not neglect the political side.

The Ohio Democratic Party got at least $150,000 and the Florida Democratic Party Building Fund got at least $350,000. The Womens National Republican Club of New York got at least $350,000, with some $150,000 going to the Black Republican Caucus in Florida. PPP also shelled out $5-10 million to the Boies Schiller Flexner law firm, headed by David Boies, whose clients include former vice president Al Gore. As embattled taxpayers assess the merits of these payouts, they might consider an item CNBC managed to miss.

As Evan Symon reports in the California Globe, PPP loans of $150-350,000 went to PlumpJack Winery, owned by California governor Gavin Newsom. Last year Newsom reported more than $200,000 in income through PlumpJack, so the governor remains a beneficiary even though he relinquished control while in office.

Before the July 4 weekend, Gov. Newsom shut down bars, restaurants, zoos, movie theaters, museums and winery tasting rooms in 19 California counties. Missing from the shutdown list is upscale Napa County, where PlumpJack is located.

All told, the PPP payouts show some distancing from the kind of accountability taxpayers have a right to expect.

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Paycheck Protection Payouts Give Taxpayers Plenty To Ponder | K. Lloyd Billingsley - The Beacon

The basic idea of Parler is an awful lot like Twitter. But instead of tweets, users post Parleys. Instead of retweets, there are echoes. And upon registering, the suggested accounts to follow include new outlets such as Breitbart, the Epoch Times, and the Daily Caller, as well as the political accounts for Rand Paul, Mark Levin, and Team Trump.

In June, right-wing users started flocking to this alt-Twitter, whose main selling point is that it vows to champion free speech. As mainstream platforms banned more far-right accounts, removed hate speech with newfound vigour, and attached warning labels to a few of President Donald Trumps tweets, Parler became, for many, an attractive solution to Twitters supposed ills.

Now, its the second most popular app in the App Store, and last week it was estimated to have reached more than 1.5 million daily users, snagging somehigh-profile newbies: Senator Ted Cruz, Representative Elise Stefanik, Representative Jim Jordan, Donald Trump Jr., and Eric Trump. What led to Parlers founding in August 2018 was, predictably, disillusionment with the likes of the Silicon Valley giants. Henderson, Nevadabased software engineers Jared Thomson and John Matze created the platform, according to Parlers website, [a]fter being exhausted with a lack of transparency in big tech, ideological suppresssion [sic] and privacy abuse.

Yet while the platform is being billed as the big free speech alternative to Twitter, it isnt exactly unique. Nor is it as uncensored as it claims to be. Parler is just the latest in a long line of rival social networks that have appeared (and, often, disappeared) in the past decade as alternatives to Big Tech. And, if the past is any indicator, its unlikely that Parler will become anything more than a fringe platform in the near future.

Some of the platforms to emerge as alternatives to the major social networks have taken a hard line on data privacy.Ello, for example, was founded in 2014 as an ad-free network that promised never to sell user data to advertisers. (After beingdubbed a Facebook killer,the site was overwhelmed with new users and crashed frequently; it could never scale up and instead became acommunity for digital artists.) MeWe, another Facebook rival, offers theindustrys first Privacy Bill of Rights. (It also takes alaissez-faire approach to content moderation.) And while its 8 million users are dwarfed by Facebooks2.6 billion, MeWe is one of the few successful alternative networks in that its continued to grow since its founding in 2016.

Also read: UnderstandingRight-Wing Resurgence in the US and India

Matze, Parlers CEO whocounts Ayn Rand and conservative economist Thomas Sowellamong his influences, fancies his platform a sort of free-speech utopia: Were a community town square, an open town square, with no censorship, Matzetold CNBC. If you can say it on the street of New York, you can say it on Parler. And while Parler says it is unbiasedMatze isoffering a $20,000 progressive bountyfor a popular liberal pundit to joinits evidently become an unofficial home to the far right, which has long claimed to be mistreated by mainstream platforms. When alt-right celebrities, such as Milo Yiannopoulos and Laura Loomer, are banned from Twitter, Parler is their next step. (Loomer announced last week that she has become the first person whose Parler following572,000exceeds her pre-ban Twitter following.)

In this regard, Parler is most similar to Gab, the free speechdriven platform launched in 2017 thats known as ahaven for extremists. [F]ar angrier and uglier than Parler, Gab quickly became a breeding ground for anti-Semitism and neo-Nazism, where postscalling for terrorist attacks and violence against minoritiescirculate.

Gabs fate, however, represents one iteration of the circle of life for platforms of its ilk: After it was connected to an instance of terrorism in 2018, when the suspect in the Pittsburgh synagogue shootingposted about his intentions to actjust before he killed 11 people, Gab never quite recovered. Its server, GoDaddy, dropped it, and though it eventually found another home online, its popularity waned following the shooting and the period offline. In 2019, a software engineer for Gabs web hosting companysaidthat the platform probably had a few tens of thousands of users at mostrather than the 835,000 that Gab claimedthough the hosting company laterdenied that.

But Parler doesnt quite have Gabs teeth. (Andrew Torba, Gabs founder, hasreferred to Parleras a network for Z-list Maga celebrities.) While even Gab has limits to free speech, since its content policypurports to ban extremism, Parler is stricter. It goes far beyond what you might expect from a platform whose entire ethos is freedom of expression. Matze listed a few of the basic rules in a Parley on Tuesday:

As the top Twitter comment points out, Twitter allows four of the five things that Parler censors. Parlers thoroughcommunity guidelinesalso prohibit spam, terrorist activity, defamation, fighting words, and obscenity, among other kinds of speech. And Parlersuser agreementincludes clauses that may seem antithetical to its mission.

Also read: As the Far-Right Culture War Escalates in Germany, Concerns Grow

The platform may remove any content and terminate your access to the Services at any time and for any reason or no reason, it states. But perhaps most surprising is this:

17. You agree to defend and indemnify Parler, as well as any of its officers, directors, employees, and agents, from and against any and all claims, actions, damages, obligations, losses, liabilities, costs or debt, and expenses (including but not limited to all attorneys fees) arising from or relating to your access to and use of the Services. Parler will have the right to conduct its own defence, at your expense, in any action or proceeding covered by this indemnity.

The indemnity provision means that if Parler faces a lawsuit for something you post, you pay. Basically, youre free to say whatever you wantas long as it falls within the community guidelines, and as long as youre willing to take the risk.

That Parler has beenreportedly banning usersen masse this week only further illuminates the faade of free speech on the platform; but regardless of the extent to which one can or cannot Parley whatever they want, the fact remains that the platform is becoming an important space for the American far right.

Its worth considering, then, what its members might do with it. Part of the concern over polarised platforms is that they can lead to radicalisation: In general, theyre seen as part of the pipeline to extremism. First, extremist movements find a foothold in mainstream platforms, where they present their norms in a slightly more palatable way, explained Jeremy Blackburn, a computer science professor at Binghamton University who researches fringe and extremist web communities. Then they gain ground in platforms like Parler that straddle the fringe and mainstream.

Once you remove any question of there being an echo chamber, theres just obvious consequences, Blackburn said.

While this may be cause for concern,Amarnath Amarasingam, an extremism researcher and professor at Queens University, is skeptical that Parler will really galvanise the right. I think part of what animates the rightand the left to some extentand particularly the far right, is the ability to argue with the other, Amarasingam said.

Interacting (and fighting) with the left reinforces the far rights identity, giving it meaning and purpose, he said, and from studying similar platforms like Gab, Amarasingam has found that talking to yourself in the dark corners of the internet is actually not that satisfying. And while he believes it might lead to the radicalization of certain individuals within the far right, the platform itself wont necessarily further the ideologies of extremist right-wing groups.

What Parler could do, Amarasingam believes, is serve as a kind of sounding board for the far right, a place for fringe movements to try out and refine different arguments. Essentially, it could be a factory of sorts, churning out ideas before theyre deployed into the mainstream. Maybe one day, at leastfor now, a good portion of the conversation of Parler is about how fantastic the platform is and how dumb the old tech giants are. Amarasingam acknowledged this.

[W]hat that indicates to me is that they actually are just using Parler to vent their anger of being suspended from what really matters, which has been more mainstream platform, he said. And so I think theyll very much try to get back into wherever the conversation is happening.

Also read: Why Regulating Social Media Will Not Solve Online Hate Speech

Theres also the matter of growth. Normally, these networks just dont get that big. Theyre considered fringe platforms for a reason, and theres rarely a solid business model behind them.

In Parlers case, the network was started with angel funding, and Matze hasnt devised a clear business plan since. Currently, histentative modelis to match conservative influencers with advertisers, and have Parler take a cut of the influencer fee. But given brandsrecent reluctance to advertise on Facebook, this plan seems far from foolproof. With only 30 employees, Parlers ability to handle more users will be tested.

It might growespecially if Trump does decide to join after allbut, as Amarasingam put it, if youre not in the mainstream, youre not in the mainstream.

Generally speaking, what I expect to see in these sites is they hit a certain threshold of users, just like any other social networking platform, said Blackburn. And then for these types of platforms that are explicitly attracting these certain types of users, probably one of them will do something stupid, then they get shut down or deplatformed, and the next one pops up.

Chloe Hadavasis a writer based in Washington.

This piece was originally published onFutureTense, a partnership betweenSlatemagazine, Arizona State University, and New America.

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Whats the Deal With Parler and its Rising Popularity? - The Wire

Brave New Worldis something I remember vividly from reading in high school. It was paired withAnthemby Ayn Rand, and I was assigned to do projects on Rands book when I wanted nothing more than to explore the world that Aldous Huxley created within the pages of Brave New World. And now, yet again, were returning to that world in 2020 with Peacocks new show starring Alden Ehrenreich, Harry Lloyd, Jessica Brown Findlay, Kylie Bunbury, and more!

In talking with the cast in preparation for the July 15 release, many expressed excitement over bringing this world to life, and I have to agree. I was instantly infatuated with the story (despite knowing it from reading the novel) and wanted to follow these characters as they began to explore a life not completely dependent on the laws of New London or John the Savage escaping the world hed known.

You can see our interviews with Jessica Brown Findlay, Harry Lloyd, Nina Sosanya, Sen Mitsuji, Hannah John-Kamen, and Joseph Morgan below!

Throughout my interviews, I asked everyone why they thought we continue to go back to the world of Aldous Huxley time and time again. While each cast member had wonderful takes on why we kept going back, I think that Jessica Brown Findlay hit the nail on the head. The world is evolving constantly and thrust into this digital age, and it is important to look at the cautionary tale that is Brave New Worldand see how we need to adapt.

Theres so much, I guess, focused on technology in our world and there are advances that we immediately see in this world. But its sort ofI think the really interesting question is the technology of humans, our own wiring, and why it is we behave and think and desire and feel the way that we do. I guess, posing the question: How much can you unravel that? Through design and through a numbing and telling people theyre happy. And, you know, people are going to slip past that and question things and I think were always going to be fascinated in that because thats how we function.

Brave New Worldhits Peacock on the 15th, and it is truly a beautiful adaptation of one of my favorite novels. I cannot wait for more, and I hope that everyone enjoys it as much as I did!

(image: Steve Schofield/Peacock)

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We Talked With the Cast of 'Brave New World'! - The Mary Sue

First and foremost, I would like to extend my congratulations to my fellow classmates for all of the hard work that we celebrate today. As Drake and Soulja Boy said in a freestyle six years ago, We Made It.

Today is one of the most important days of our lives. As we gather here together to celebrate more than a decade of learning, were surrounded by all of the people who taught and inspired us. Parents, teachers, Fitch faculty, thank you for guiding us to this very special moment.

Class of 2020, I wish for each and every one of you to pursue the passions that make you most happy. In a chaotic and unpredictable world, as we have been witness to during recent times, I want everyone to find a reason to breathe in and smile. Maybe today its learning a new instrument, working out, or going out on a hike with loved ones.

For tomorrow it may be creating a new invention, starting a company, or discovering a cure to the diseases that wreak havoc on our lives. Whatever you are passionate about for the future, I encourage you to dream on. These dreams are your fuel for making it to the end of the day, exhausted in bed knowing that you have given 110%.

Russian-American author Ayn Rand, in her novel "Atlas Shrugged," emphasizes the purpose of life as being the pursuit of ones happiness. Rand writes, Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark in the hopeless swamps of the not-quite, the not-yet, and the not-at-all. Do not let the hero in your soul perish in lonely frustration for the life you deserve and have never been able to reach. The world you desire can be won. It exists.. it is real... it is possible... it's yours.

Despite being Robert E. Fitch High Schools Class of 2020, (a class with perfect vision of course), I dont think any of us foresaw back in September, a graduation, never mind our final spring semester together, as it is today. Lets applaud those parents, staff, and faculty that put in countless hours of work to make sure that this graduation could still be special.

Class of 2020, weve just completed a great journey together, and from the bottom of my heart I wish you all the very best on your future endeavours. Thank you.

(William Miner is the Fitch High School Class of 2020 Salutatorian.)

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Remember to find a reason to smile - News from southeastern Connecticut - theday.com

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As law schools put together their responses to what has clearly become an historic juncture in the countrys long, ignominious history with race, its worth remembering that a law school at a public university went out of its way to rename itself after a guy who thought the Voting Rights Act was a perpetuation of racial entitlement and cited debunked theories about black people needing slower-track school from the bench. At a moment when most institutions are taking a hard look at their role in the wider landscape of racial injustice, its safe to say that ASSLaw is not.

ASSLaw, of course, is the George Mason University School of Law, which renamed itself the Antonin Scalia School of Law at the behest of a wealthy donor under admittedly shady circumstances without taking a second to consider the truly fitting acronym theyd bestowed upon themselves. They attempted to rebrand as the Antonin Scalia Law School, but by then wed all embraced the ASSLaw moniker.

And it seems that the school is content to follow their namesakes lead when it comes to race and diversity.

The school is a mere 2 percent black, an eye-popping number for a public school in Virginia. On a recent conference call discussing the issue, the Dean of Admissions cited the old canard of high academic standards as the reason why the school does not have more black students. Its a justification that would be news to UVA (5.7 percent), Georgetown (9.2 percent), and George Washington (7.8 percent), all demonstrably superior academic institutions that seem to have no problem finding black law students.

In fairness, part of the schools problem is the name itself. When the school made the shift to align itself ideologically with a jurist who spent his tenure pushing racist, sexist, and homophobic tropes onto the national stage we all knew it would create a self-selection diversity problem as minority students inched away from the barely top 50 program when so many alternatives exist. George Masons president, Angel Cabrera, defended the name change at the time with words that were either tragically ironic or nakedly cynical, We must ensure that George Mason University remains an example of diversity of thought, a place where multiple perspectives can be dissected, confronted, and debated for the benefit and progress of society at large. What he got was a school systematically erasing actual diversity. But more conservative professors whose scholarship might not land them work elsewhere get to call the school home and thats a kind of diversity, if a racist one.

But even if the name greatly diminished the pool of black applicants, the attempt to pin the lack of diversity on high academic standards hits at the core of the schools philosophical problem. Its not just that the school doesnt seem to care about diversity, its that they are quick to blame their own institutional shortcomings on black people themselves. As they see it, ASSLaw hasnt failed to recruit students the students failed to be good enough for ASSLaw. Its an exercise in victim blaming that guarantees the school will remain mired at the bottom of diversity rankings until it undergoes a fundamental mindset shift.

For the minority students still braving the ASSLaw ranks, the school isnt performing much better. With Eugene Volokh tossing around racial slurs and throwing tantrums when hes called out for it, you can imagine what a faculty built around Volokh Conspiracy bloggers can get up to. In response to complaints about both professors and students saying unconscionable stuff in class, the school formed a Classroom Dialogue Committee. That certainly sounds like a step in the right direction, but were hearing that many of the professors on the committee have complaints against them for inappropriate comments. Its like letting the inmates run the Ayn Rand School for Objectivist Studies.

And since ASSLaw is just Fosters Home For Right-Wing Troll Friends, the school that cant find any way to admit more black people did manage to bring in Ginni Thomass infamous aide Crystal Clanton who we last caught up with when she was texting co-workers that:

I HATE BLACK PEOPLE. Like fuck them all ... I hate blacks. End of story.

Despite this being a well-known incident that led to even Turning Point USA distancing themselves from her, ASSLaw admitted Clanton in another display of the schools deep commitment to promoting an inclusive atmosphere for professional education.

But Clanton has learned to like Clarence Thomas so I guess racism is solved.

At the end of the day, ASSLaw is now the conservative ideology factory that we thought it would be. But George Mason isnt a private school. A public school that cant muster a black student body of more than 2 percent in a state thats roughly 19 percent black is objectively failing at its mission to serve the people of Virginia.

There are definitely bigger issues in Virginia right now than law school administration, but thats no excuse for continued inaction. Someone in state government needs to step in and be the adult in the room because the stunted adolescence of libertarianism certainly isnt producing any leadership from within the school. This is the largest public research university in the state! And yet the law school seems more focused on providing a mill for conservative academics to publish hot takes than building the profession.

Fix it.

Joe Patriceis a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free toemail any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him onTwitterif youre interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.

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Shockingly, Law School Named For Affirmative Action Opponent Bad At Race And Diversity - Above the Law

The New Republic article about Rand, which we looked at in Part 1, stood out not primarily because of what it said about her, but in how it conveyed its message. The article put a tribal prejudice toward Rand above facts and logic. That same mindset is on display, even more starkly, in Amanda Marcottes Salon article, Right-wingers finally got their Ayn Rand hero as president and its this guy.

Let me stress, again, that my goal is not to change your mind about Rand and her ideas, nor primarily to correct the many errors and misrepresentations in these articles (though Ill point out some of them along the way). Instead, the point is to explain how the two articles are fundamentally uninterested in convincing any active-minded reader. Their aim, rather, is to affirm a preset narrative about Rand. These are worse than mere smears, because their tribal mindset represents the abandonment of rational persuasion as the goal of intellectual discussion.

Marcottes point is captured in the subtitle: Conservatives finally have a leader who lives by Ayn Rands selfish philosophy, and hes an embarrassing clown, the clown being Donald Trump. But whatever you might think of Rand or of Trump, this is a claim thats far from self-evident. It requires a real argument. Marcottes article offers no argument. Its written for an audience that already partly or fully shares Marcottes preconceptions.

What would it take to build a case that Trump is the incarnation of Rands moral ideals? For a start, and at minimum, youd need to grasp what Rands view actually is, why she holds it, and how her radical view relates to, and contrasts with, existing views in morality. Rand once summarized her system of ideas by saying that My philosophy, in essence, is 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. Part of whats radical in Rands moral theory is that she argues for an individualist morality that is non-predatory.

Marcottes article offers no argument. Its written for an audience that already partly or fully shares Marcottes preconceptions.

Each individual, in her view, is responsible for achieving his own happiness by his own effort and the use of his own mind without sacrifices of anyone to anyone. That means a rational egoist neither surrenders his own values and goals to others, nor sacrifices others to himself. On Rands view, the egoist is someone guided by reason, pursuing creative achievement, building mutually beneficial relationships. It is nothing like the conventional view of a whim-driven brute who lies, cheats, and steals, walking over corpses to get his way.

From this brief indication of her view, it should be evident that what Rand means by selfishness is far different from what most people mean by that term. Regardless of whether one agrees with her conception, the fact is that Rand is saying something distinctive and new, and it takes work to understand it and think through what her morality does (and does not) look like in practice.

Marcotte, by contrast, evidently cannot imagine a moral ideal so dramatically at odds with conventional views. Apparently, the possibility of a non-predatory individualist is unreal to her, or else its pushed out of mind. Instead, Marcotte aims to patch together a narrative to affirm her prejudice against Rand. The goal is to portray Rand as a monster whose moral ideal, in practice, turns out to be a monster such as Trump.

To that end, Marcotte begins with a disturbing claim. Marcotte writes that Rand had a schoolgirl crush on a murderer, William Hickman, that she based a character on him in plans for an early story, and that she later reworked her idea of the individualistic, contemptuous hero into The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged.

Marcottes smear operates in part by omitting important facts.

Since Rands mature views reject any form of predation, her youthful interest in Hickman is strange enough that if you are going to raise it, it demands thoughtful exploration. A multitude of questions spring to mind: What was the nature of Rands curiosity in him? Where did she articulate it? When was this? How does it relate to her mature, principled advocacy of individual rights as sacrosanct?

READ ALSO: Never-Before-Seen Ayn Rand Commentary on Politics

None of these questions interests Marcotte, who slants the episode to smear Rand. Marcottes smear operates in part by omitting important facts. Let me indicate just five.

First, its a gross distortion to call Rands reaction a schoolgirl crush, which you can see for yourself in Rands own notes on the subject. She made those notes in her personal journals, which can be found in Journals of Ayn Rand, published long after her death. Across decades, Rand wrote voluminously in her journals to sketch ideas for characters, plays, stories, novels; to engage in thinking on paper for her own understanding; to distill lessons and conclusions from her experiences with people and events.

Second, she wrote these journal entries for an audience of exactly one herself. In her journals she was continually forming, revising, changing, clarifying her views. Nothing in them was ever meant for publication, so its ludicrous to treat her journals as definitive statements of her considered view.

Third, Marcotte hand-wavingly notes that fans are quick to argue that Rand didnt endorse the murder, but elides the fact that Rand herself, in her own journal notes, repudiates Hickmans abhorrent crime.

Fourth, a relevant fact for understanding Rands interest in Hickman is that she was a fiction writer, and she was sketching ideas for a story. She was curious about the character and psychology of individuals, about what ideas and attitudes motivated them, in part for the sake of depicting the motivation of fictional characters. This is an issue central to the craft of writing fiction, which Rand (at the time, aged 23) was striving to master.

Fifth, it is impossible to read Rands notes about Hickman and the story she was planning without observing the influence of the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche on the young Rand. That influence is manifest in the premise of the story and the lead character she envisioned for it (Rand uses concepts borrowed from Nietzsche and quotes him in her notes). Rand never got far in planning that story and decided to abandon it. Why? The project was too alien to her deepest premises, writes David Harriman, editor of Journals of Ayn Rand, who points out (along with other scholars) that Rand went on to discard Nietzsches philosophic ideas and explicitly repudiated them.

For Marcotte, such facts are pushed aside in the dash to affirm a preconception about Rand. The next step in that process is to link this fictional Rand to conservatism and President Trump.

Marcotte wheels out the trope that Rand is the backbone of modern conservativism. This metaphor obscures a complicated reality, which I mentioned in Part 1, about the nature of Rands influence on conservatives and right-leaning folks. Moreover, there are abundant counterexamples that negate this trope. The aim of Marcottes article, however, is not to convince, but to reinforce preconceptions, and her intended audience is already primed to feel loathing at the mention of conservatism. Thats the emotional context Marcottes article works to activate.

Marcottes unwarranted lumping together of Rand with conservatism reflects a definite purpose. Rands philosophy, Marcotte writes, serves as a pseudo-intellectual rationalization, beloved by assorted Republicans, for a reactionary movement that rose up to reject the feminist and anti-racist movements of the 20th century. One giveaway here is the word reactionary.

In this mindset, its unimaginable that someone could have a view different from ones own that is grounded in reasonable argument.

Even if you reject conservatism (as I do), Marcottes characterization of it betrays, not a reasoned opposition, but a tribal opposition. Were there conservatives who were racist and misogynistic? Yes, and there still are. But the sweeping claim in Marcottes article is that conservatives were reactionary: meaning, they stubbornly opposed progress. They could have had no legitimate basis for their concerns about, for example, the growth of government regulations, or the cost of burgeoning welfare programs, or the budget. Regardless of whether you share those concerns, some conservative intellectuals actually did voice reasoned objections to these developments. But for Marcotte and her intended audience, these outsiders, members of an opposing tribe, can be nothing but wrong and evil. In this mindset, its unimaginable that someone could have a view different from ones own that is grounded in reasonable argument.

In linking Rand with conservatism, Marcotte is uninterested in the fact which contradicts her narrative that Rand wrote at length about her philosophic opposition to the conservative movement (see, for instance, the essay Conservatism: An Obituary). Whats more, nowhere in Marcottes article will you learn that Rand was a fierce opponent of racism. Nor will you learn about Rands distinctive, profound opposition to the conventional notion that a womans place is in the home; or that a woman is somehow intellectually or morally inferior to a man. Among Rands fictional heroes are two women, Kira Argounova (in We the Living) and Dagny Taggart (in Atlas Shrugged), who shatter stereotyped roles for women. Long before it was imaginable in our culture, Dagny Taggart took it for granted that she could run a vast railroad network, and she did so superlatively; it was at most an afterthought for her that anyone might object. Kira Argounova, fascinated by buildings and bridges, wanted to be an engineer, and her will to achieve her goals in life was indomitable.

READ ALSO: An Alternative to Conspiracism's Foolish Illusions

All of this, and more, Marcotte must brush aside in order to shoehorn Rands ideas into the same category as the reactionary right, the opposing political tribe that Marcotte and many of her readers hate. Doing so, in defiance of the facts, is part of Marcottes larger effort to present Donald Trump as the full, perfect embodiment of Rands moral theory of selfishness. Linking Trump and Rand serves to smear each with the taken-for-granted evil of the other.

Whats the argument for that link? There is none and, tellingly, no attempt to engage with obvious objections or counterarguments. What Marcotte conveys is a disdain for the sheer possibility that anyone could hold a different view on the subject. Regardless of your assessment of President Trump, the claim that hes the embodiment of Ayn Rands moral ideas should give pause to anyone with even an elementary grasp of her outlook.

What leaps off the pages of Atlas Shrugged is not that Rand glamorizes all businesspeople, but rather that she draws a bright moral dividing line. On one side are productive business leaders, who use their minds to create real value, exchanging it in trade for mutual advantage. It is such producers who are the business heroes she valorizes for their achievements.

On the other side of that moral line are the businessmen who rely on political pull to handicap their competitors, who extort protections and corporate welfare, and who lie, cheat, and exploit others in their grubbing for unearned wealth. Such villains, in todays world, embody the scourge of cronyism.

Marcottes disdain for argument, for evidence, indeed, for the intellect of her readers is blatant in what she takes as a credible source on Rands ideas.

Just on the basis of this sketch of one aspect of Rands view, Donald Trump is far from an obvious manifestation of her moral theory. The evidence, in my view, is that his actions and statements contradict the virtue of selfishness; that, for instance, Trumps business career has relied on pull peddling and that, as president, he feeds that cronyism dynamic. My colleague Ben Bayer has argued convincingly that Trump negates Rands view of selfishness; and others still have pointed out ways in which Trump is actually more like an Ayn Rand villain.

But my aim here is not to convince you of either of those points. Rather its to indicate that any claim that Trump embodies Rands concept of selfishness would need to build an argument for that, and take seriously counterpoints and obvious objections if your goal is to convince.

Thats precisely what Marcotte disdains. I say disdain, because any reputable magazine would expect its writers to Google the topic theyre pitching, to see if anyones written on it before. Try it yourself; you should find at least two articles on the subject by my colleague Onkar Ghate. One evaluates the Trump phenomenon generally; the other considers what Rand might have thought of Trump. You might also find my article on how Trumps foreign policy clashes with Rands philosophy. And again, we at ARI are hardly the only ones to voice our perspective on this issue. Marcotte, however, does not even gesture toward engaging with these contrasting views; doing so would imply that there could be a credible view different from her preconception.

READ ALSO: Crisis, Lies and Morality: Snyders On Tyranny

Marcottes disdain for argument, for evidence, indeed, for the intellect of her readers is blatant in what she takes as a credible source on Rands ideas. For a credible third-party source, where does Marcotte turn? To one of a number of the established, published scholars of Rands ideas? No. To an expert on the field of ethics, who has some awareness of how Rands ideas relate to the intellectual landscape? No.

Who, then? Marcotte turns to a guy with a blog. She cites someone who posted blog entries while reading his way through Atlas Shrugged. To pretend that this blog is a credible source is journalistic malpractice. If a journalist wrote about, say, Marxs Das Kapital, or Darwins Origin of Species to take two influential works that defied conventional thinking and presented a random blogger with no evident expertise as an authority on the subject, it would be laughable.

What Marcottes article exhibits even more blatantly than Sammons piece in the New Republic is a tribalist mindset.

The tribal mind is insular and keen to stay that way. Outsiders are viewed with suspicion, often hostility. The sheer possibility that outsiders might have different views and beliefs, and hold them for good reasons, is simply alien. Thats largely because the tribalist himself has fastened onto his beliefs and pieties, not through a thoughtful weighing of the evidence and by following the logic, but through conformity with the group. Theres just what his own tribe believes. All else has to be wrong. Its beyond the pale, worthy only of contempt and disdain.

Theres an underlying commonality between a Trump rally and the Marcotte and Sammon articles: they put a tribal narrative above facts and logic.

We can observe two important consequences of this tribalist mindset on display in Marcottes article about Rand. One is Marcottes disdain for facts and logic. A tribalist sees no need to convince others of his views: why take the effort of trying to communicate with outsiders, who by virtue of being outside the tribe must be wrong? Besides, if he himself didnt need evidence and logic to swallow his groups beliefs and pieties, why would anyone else?

Second, the tribalist does feel a strong need to affirm and reinforce for himself and fellow tribe members that their ways and beliefs are right, and that outsiders are wrong, if not evil, too.

A critical reading of Marcottes and Sammons articles makes clear that a major, if not the prime, aim is to rally certain readers. To activate them emotionally, not cognitively. For those readers, the common takeaway is that, despite Rands distinctive views, she can be lumped in with the hated right-wing/conservative tribe.

These articles offer the reassurance that, despite Rands enduring prominence and ongoing cultural influence, she is unworthy of serious attention. That the Objectivist movement is nosediving. That Rand, finally, is canceled.

What the Marcotte and Sammon articles do to Rand in print, Donald Trump does to his enemies in speeches at loyalist rallies. The approach is the same. The president can spellbind the audience with innuendo, pseudo-facts, and arbitrary assertions, precisely because they reinforce a conclusion many already came in with: Trump is right, his opponents in the enemy tribe are victimizing him.

No attempt is made to convince anyone in the stands. The conclusions, so congenial to the tribe, are already known. The facts or rather, innuendo, insinuation, hints and arbitrary allegations are conjured up, trimmed, shorn of context, bent, distorted to affirm the tribes common prejudices against its enemies. Theres an underlying commonality between a Trump rally and the Marcotte and Sammon articles: they put a tribal narrative above facts and logic.

There are fascinating questions to explore about the impact of Ayn Rands ideas and their cultural influence. Such questions, however, are shoved to the wayside in the Marcotte and Sammon articles. The driving impulse to cancel Rand in the eyes of their tribal audience hardly original to these articles is its own kind of cultural indicator.

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When Tribal Journalists Try to 'Cancel' Ayn Rand (Part 2) - New Ideal

One of the defining features of the reactionary outlook is how thin its conception of lifes meaning is, and this, in turn, explains why reactionaries tend to be so anxious about it all falling apart

Introduction

It is not I who will die; it is the world that will end.

Ayn Rand, citing one of her favorite expressions

Rarely have so many concerned themselves with the politics of meaning. This is particularly true of the many reactionary figures who have emerged in our time, particularly post-modern conservatives. As far back as 2016a lifetime ago, it seemsthe conservative essayist Michael Anton described the culture war in the United States as being caught in an endless cycle of decline and fall brought about by progressive forces. So pervasive had progressives influence become, Anton argued, that even conservatives were increasingly willing to go quietly into the night. This he described as the mark of a party, a society, a country, a people, a civilization that wants to die. More recently, R.R Reno, the editor of First Things, condemned the strict measures in place to moderate the Coronavirus (COVID-19), describing them as symptomatic of a culture that places fear of death at the center of life. And, of course, there are the endless complaints about dangerous academics at elite universities propagating nihilistic, post-modern philosophies.

Upon reviewing these often shrill polemics, one might expect that reactionaries would be acutely sensitive to the politics of meaning, and that they would be leading the struggle against cultural nihilism. However, in fact, I believe the opposite to be true. One of the defining features of the reactionary outlook is how thin its conception of lifes meaning is, and this, in turn, explains why reactionaries tend to be so anxious about it all falling apart, an idea I will explore in this brief essay.

The Reactionary Outlook

It is important, first and foremost, to stress that the reactionary impulse is an outlook, rather than a developed political philosophy. Consequently, reactionaries can be found to hold a mishmash of metaphysical and historical views. Some reactionaries are devoutly religious traditionalists, while others are militant atheists. Reactionaries such as Nietzsche might heap scorn upon vulgar economic reasoning, while others like Ayn Rand may romantically praise capitalists as creators and producers. However, all reactionaries dispositionally share much in common. The reactionary sees existence as a fundamentally threatening place, with meaningless chaos being the norm rather than the exception. For reactionaries, existence is an anorexic god, endlessly hungry and always on the verge of imploding from its own lack of substance. This god can only be preserved by applying great strength. This gloomy outlook also extends to the vast majority of humankind, who lacks the strength to bring much of value into the world. This is the herd in Nietzsches terminology, second handers in Rands, and the inferior as Ludwig von Mises put it. This reduction of most people to beings of minuscule worth implies that a majority in a society cannotand should notbe given a great deal of power over the direction the society takes. Those who should have such power are the so-called superior men: individuals who possess the character and strength to create an enduring and stable order, which provides the herd with a sense of purpose while also keeping them in line.

Each reactionary has a different conception of what the superior man is, though there are many commonalities. The most important is that the superior man is not a figure of Aristotelian moderationlet alone a humble and self-sacrificing Christian. Indeed, one of the great ironies of traditionalist reactionaries is their tendency to invoke fear of a declining homogenous Christian order, while talking a great deal about war and enforcing order. This, after all, is not exactly following in the footsteps of the lamb of God. The superior man is also typically just that: a man. The reactionary imagination is typically parasitic on the culture it reacts against, which, invariably, means drawing liberally from the clichs and prejudices of the time. This means that many reactionaries, including women, tend to be misogynists. They castigate so called effeminate qualities like compassion and empathy, while still insisting that most men are not stereotypically masculine enough. In a more crude form, reactionaries may decry that a culture has become too dominated by feelings, rather than reason. But this always excludes the emotions reactionaries cherish. These emotions include anger, competitiveness, pride, etc. And emotions such as these are usually associated with a particularly repressed form of masculinity. Finally, reactionaries tend to revere strength, though not necessarily of character or virtue.

The strength reactionaries admire is the capacity to impose ones will upon the world, which, at its zenith, refers to the ability to compel or dominate others to bring them in line with the necessary order. This means that reactionaries tend to support hierarchical forms of political organization, with the exact form depending on whom the reactionary reveres as strong and who they castigate as unworthy. For early modern defenders of absolutism such as Robert Filmer and Joseph de Maistre, God had dictated that the aristocracy be in charge. With declining faith in theological arguments in the 19th century, reactionaries began to cherry pick more rationalistic sounding arguments about the superiority of their chosen culture. Or, at worst, they sought to develop scientific explanations for racial prejudice. In our day, many reactionaries insist that the secularized theological power of the invisible hand operates across the market to sort worthy creators from unworthy second handers. In doing so, the invisible hand bestows wealth and power on the former, while the latter is left to do the mundane work needed to keep the world turning. In each instance, it is only a small elite with the strength to maintain order that prevents the world from slipping into the vulgarity and chaos that would be associated with rule by the unworthy masses.

Conclusion: The Anorexic God

This brings me to the paradoxical approach to meaning at the center of the reactionary outlook. Reactionaries position themselves as opposed to the nihilism of the modern world, which has, without exception, decayed from some nostalgic ideal lost to history. One might respond to this by observing thateven if this ideal time did existit must not have been as spectacular as the reactionary supposes. Otherwise, it would not have been abandoned. If traditionalist Christian civilizationor unbridled 19th century capitalismwere such meaning saturated societies, then why did people rebel against them en masse, demanding dramatic changes? But this possibility is never entertained, with reactionaries much preferring vague but affective narratives of decadence, vulgarity, and a steep decline from greatness. More importantly, the often shrill denouncements of modern nihilism display how little meaning many reactionaries think the world actually has.

For the reactionary, the modern world is portrayed as dramatically fallen and drained of meaning. This is becauseunless the superior men and the right hierarchy are in placethe omnipresent threat of chaos and decline is all that can take their place. Modernity is damned precisely because it has ceded too much to the unworthy. The remarkable thing about this is just how fragile the reactionarys sense of the worlds meaning is. The reactionarys tremendous emphasis on strength and accomplishment displays an impotent fascination with bigness and grandeur that ignores the small but divine ways in which many ordinary people struggle to make life better for themselves and others. One of the reasons reactionaries despise the democratic culture of the masses is precisely because it directs our attention to the mundane needs that actually make up our lives. This often takes the form of a cooperative effort at gradually improving our communities and the world around us. The reactionary has no interest in that, solipsistically believing that unless the truly worthy are in charge (and the right order enforced), existence is leeched of significance.

This simplistic retreat from the complexity of the world demonstrates the existentially thin quality of the reactionary outlook. When commenting on Ayn Rand, Corey Robin, the Brooklyn College political scientist, observed that her bastardization of Aristotelian syllogisms such as A=Acombined with her relentless self-promotionrevealed more than she may have intended. Rand was attracted to a world where everything simply was what it was. She focused relentlessly on herself, while expressing scorn and disdain for the vast majority of people who came before and after her. She was convinced that when she diedfor all intents and purposesthe world ceased to exist. The only meaning that one could find in life came from oneself, paired with the private aspiration for romantic greatness as a heroic figure raised above the masses. This nihilistic outlook, along with its reactionary kin, worship an anorexic God, and we should reject their idolatries.

Matt McManus is Professor of Politics and International Relations at Tec de Monterrey, and the author of Making Human Dignity Central to International Human Rights Law and The Rise of Post-Modern Conservatism. His new projects include co-authoring a critical monograph on Jordan Peterson and a book on liberal rights for Palgrave MacMillan. Matt can be reached atmattmcmanus300@gmail.comor added on twitter vie@mattpolprof

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Understanding the Reactionary Outlook - Merion West

Young readers may find this hard to believe, but the United States was not always an ill-fated land battered by disaster, piling up its dead and crying out for humanitarian aid from more developed countries. The old-timers among us remember a different America an America where airlines fly millions of people from city to city every day, an America where people could walk in the street with their faces exposed, an America where every citizen has the right to shake the hand of the shopkeeper who just sold him a box of cornflakes, or a rifle. Yesterdays world.

And suddenly, theres the coronavirus. Theres no knowing where this contaminated rolling snowball will stop perhaps it will even bring about the removal of President Trump from office in November? After all, it would take only a few thousand angry people in Pennsylvania and Florida to tilt the electoral scales from red to blue and to deliver the presidency to whoever is running against him (as long as that person is not a socialist Jew).

In any event, every such crisis has a deeper dimension than its potential influence on a presidential election. There is something thrilling, almost hypnotic, about the glorious helplessness America displays every time a devastating hurricane or a wind-borne virus transforms the country from an economic and technological superpower into a humanitarian disaster area. People dying in the streets was something we had in the Old Country and surely not what we expected when we boarded the Mayflower almost exactly 400 years ago.

Sooner or later, our lips will utter the precise word: capitalism. After all, in the eyes of the progressive left, thats the preexisting condition from which America has been suffering since the 17th century. Its what prevents establishment of a public health system and makes the country so very vulnerable now. In the eyes of free-market advocates, however, capitalism is what turned mass death, hunger and disease from self-evident and almost certain phenomena in the pre-capitalist world, into something rarely seen in the modern landscape.

I always found people of the second type more interesting (right is always more interesting than left, everywhere and at any time). In fact, they interested me so much that ages ago I decided to visit America and get as close as possible to an extraordinarily fascinating cult that sprang up around an equally extraordinary and fascinating woman. It was a particularly marvelous journey that was still possible in another era in early January 2020, before the first coronavirus victim in China wondered why hed had a hard time breathing. I bought a plane ticket, because they were being sold, and disembarked in California, because it was permitted. Heady days.

Dollars and dystopia

Ten measures of dollar fetishism God gave to the world nine were taken by writer and philosopher Ayn Rand, on whose behalf Id boarded the plane. In Atlas Shrugged, her best-known, dystopian novel, the United States sinks into the depths of collectivist tyranny, and all that remains of the dying empire of capitalism is an isolated valley settled by a few hundred free enterprisers individualists, the last true Americans. And what hangs like the sun in the skies? A sculpture of the dollar sign, fashioned of pure gold, one meter high. The same dollar sign this time made of flowers, and almost two meters high was placed on Ayn Rands grave in 1982 by the most loyal and tearful of her admirers, as it was being sealed.

William F. Buckley, Jr., the godfather of modern American conservatism, often accused Rand of wanting to substitute the sign of the dollar for the cross. He thereby erred in underestimating her intentions; the truth is that she would also have replaced the American flag with the dollar sign. Her fetishism for the letter S with a vertical stroke through it was not based on some aesthetic caprice, but on a rational argument that goes well beyond obsession: The dollar was the apex of creativity of the human spirit.

Ayn Rand, ne Alisa Rosenbaum, was born in 1905 to a bourgeois Jewish family in St. Petersburg a reality that placed her on the wrong side of the Bolshevik revolution. In an alternative and not untenable scenario, she might have fled to Palestine and lived out her life in Tel Aviv as Miss Rosenbaum, the persnickety neighbor on the ground floor. But Alisa wanted America, America first, and crossed the ocean, where she eventually found work as a scriptwriter in Hollywood.

Rand would go on to divide her life between Manhattan and Hollywood, thrilled to the depths of her soul by the skyscrapers of the one and the factory of dreams of the other. Her most important novels, Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead, would sell 30 million copies between them. The rate of sales would accelerate with every economic crisis, with every public debate about the limits of the governments power, with every election of a person named Barack Obama to the White House.

The outbreak of the coronavirus also will have its effect: 2020 is sure to be a boon for the beneficiaries of Rands intellectual estate.

The philosophical theory she propounded, which she called Objectivism, arises from every one of the too-many pages of her literary works and from numberless other theoretical texts she published, which are far more interesting.

When it comes to philosophy, political thought (radical capitalism, in this case) is built upon basic philosophical tiers: metaphysics, epistemology and ethics. Yes, lofty words, but in contrast to some contemporaneous philosophers, who did all they could to ensure that we would have no idea what they were talking about with Rand everything is understood. She wrote clearly. In fact, the principal tenets of Objectivism can be summed up quite briefly:

The first tier: metaphysics. Reality is objective. Facts exist. Beliefs or desires will not change them. In other words, it makes no difference how ardently you believe in God that will not make him exist.

The second tier: epistemology. Reason is mans sole means of perceiving reality and his place within it. In short: Stop feeling things and use your brain, stupid.

The third tier, ethics, is the crowning glory of Objectivism: egoism. Man is his own purpose. Do not sacrifice your life for the sake of others and do not ask others to sacrifice their lives for you.

What are the political implications of this architectural edifice? And then there is the fourth tier: capitalism. The only system in which everyone lives for himself. Randian morality does not differentiate between human rights and property rights. Plundering a persons property (by levying taxes, for example) namely, dispossessing someone of the fruits of his labor, which promote his physical survival and his egoistic happiness is equivalent to jailing him without a trial.

Capitalism, Rand decreed, need not be restrained, as liberals argue, nor need it be prettified and painted in colors that will conceal its true nature, as conservatives habitually do. We should take pride in and feel blessed by pure capitalism the sort that is fueled by uncompromising rational egoism. But capitalism runs contrary to the principle of equality! readers of Haaretz and The New York Times will grumble. Indeed, Rand will reply to them, in her Russian accent, and that is exactly what makes it just.

When in virtually every Hollywood movie the bad guy is always the one who thinks only of himself and the good guy sacrifices himself for the benefit of others; when the leftist propaganda machine persuaded generations of Americans that the mega-industrialists of the 19th century the greatest humanitarians of mankind were nothing but robber barons; and when an American president dares to preach, Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country, and is wildly applauded even by self-styled capitalists after all this, Rands conclusion was that America is committing suicide by way of a cup of moral hemlock served up by left-wing intellectuals in their perverted thrust to establish an anti-rational nightmarish society.

From her point of view, this is a society whose raison dtre is adhering to the primitive tribal principle of serving the common good. Its a society thats suitable for a beehive but contrary to human nature: an egalitarian society.

Instant cult

Objectivism became a cult the instant it was born, thanks largely to Rands enigmatic character, her psychological control over an inner circle of followers, and most of all, the obsessed devotion of young Nathaniel Branden, her intellectual right-hand (and secret lover), the cult builder, who made it clear to everyone that Objectivism is a package deal: If you are a radical capitalist but believe in God, go away and dont come back; if you are an avowed atheist but believe in the states right to levy taxes, find yourself a different rabbi.

At regular meetings with her acolytes in her apartment on E. 36th Street in Manhattan, when the slightest hint of disagreement over her teachings was expressed by anyone present, even in a discussion about art, that person was sent into permanent exile.

The result: a cult that extols radical individualism, consisting of people whose philosophical, political, cultural, aesthetic, cinematic, literary and musical tastes are absolutely identical. To ensure the cults long-term survival, Rand ordained one of her brilliant pupils, Leonard Peikoff, as her legal and intellectual heir that is, a human mouthpiece through whom she would continue to articulate her doctrine, even from beyond the grave.

To be an Objectivist means to believe with complete faith (that is to say, to think solely based on reason) in one and only one proposition: John Galts oath a reference to the protagonist of Atlas Shrugged. In the novel, every free enterpriser who wants to be admitted to the last capitalist paradise on Earth is obligated to pledge: 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.

If Atlas Shrugged is the Bible (although its not; the Bible is shorter), then John Galts oath is the Ten Commandments. It is engraved in the heart of every Objectivist, tattooed on the arm of many of them, printed on T-shirts, coffee mugs, caps, posters on anything that can be sold for a few bucks, for the egoistical benefit of buyer and seller.

Within a few years of Rands death, the movement she founded faced a crisis that revolved around a question usually reserved for discourse surrounding religious cults: Is Objectivism a complete, hermetically sealed doctrine as Peikoff and the vast majority of her followers maintained or is it an elastic philosophy that can still be developed, as a no-less loyal Randist, David Kelley, thought? For a few thousands of die-hard Objectivists, this was not merely a theoretical matter; old friends turned their back on each other, families were torn apart.

In 1985, Peikoff, the leader of the orthodox majority faction of the movement remaining after Rands death, established the Ayn Rand Institute, a research body that would disseminate standard Objectivism, the type that is permissible and desirable to contemplate by day and by night, but in which not even a comma can be changed. The institutes declared goal is to spearhead a cultural renaissance that will reverse the anti-reason, anti-individualism, anti-freedom, anti-capitalist trends in todays culture.

In leftist eyes, this constitutes a paradox. After all, every social democrat knows that the 1980s marked the awakening of neoliberalism, the swinish capitalism with which economist Milton Friedman cultivated leaders like Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. Well, youre making Rand laugh: Friedmans insistence on viewing economics as a science detached from philosophy made him, in her eyes, a miserable eclectic and an enemy of Objectivism. Redemption would not come from pretend capitalists.

Meeting the faithful

I decided to pay a visit to the Ayn Rand Institute in Southern California for two reasons: to meet Rand herself through her private archive there, and to meet the faithful of her cult of followers who, like her, are known among their enemies as mysterious, rigid, dogmatic, humorless, socially challenged individuals who are unable to express human affection people who admire humankind but hate human beings. Its not surprising that many of them, so its said, have chosen, like Rand herself, not to have children.

The headquarters of the Ayn Rand cult is located in the city of Irvine, one of the least touristy places within the greater Los Angeles area. Its morning, the streets are utterly empty, the few paved sidewalks look as sterile as a computer simulation of some future real estate project. In another two months, the emptiness would be due to the areas closure, following the advent of the coronavirus pandemic.

I walk to the address Ive been given, on the way memorizing John Galts oath from my iPhone, in case officers of the order ask me to recite it. I stand below their premises. Not a bewitched fortress or a dark monastery, but a plain 10-story office building; there are a hundred like it in Ramat Hahayal or the Raanana industrial zone, in Israel.

At the entrance is a small man-made pond with ducks paddling about on it. Just before I enter the lobby, one of them fixes round, warning eyes on me, and I cant help thinking that this duck was once a person who arranged to visit here, did not properly follow the orders ritual rules and paid for it by being cursed for all eternity. What will happen if they ask me whether Im an Objectivist? Is it the custom to say good morning there, or does that greeting attest to moral failure, an irrational act that exercises the vocal cords for the sake of taking an interest in the happiness of a person who is not me? Is it okay to look them in the eyes?

I press the doorbell on the sixth floor. As I will infer afterward, as I wait for long seconds at the entrance, members of the order, proficient in the stranger at the door drill, doff their robes, remove the stuffed heads of leftists that normally hang on the walls, and try to create the appearance of an innocent office within the space there. Steps are heard approaching from inside. The door opens, and facing me is the gatekeeper of the order a man on the brink of retirement age, no longer wearing the robe, wearing a broad smile and overt silence. I introduce myself hesitantly. Come in, he whispers, weve been waiting for you.

The Ayn Rand Institute the control center of the world Objectivist cult looks like a medium-sized accountants office. In the anteroom, behind a rope barrier similar to those found in banks, is the original wooden desk on which Rand wrote her books and articles. The desk was built by her husband, the actor and painter Frank OConnor. Its a very heavy desk, recalling a medieval surgical table. Only God knows how many social democrats have been tortured on it by electric shock since it was brought here.

The gatekeeper entrusts me to Jennifer, the archives director. She shows me around the office and introduces me to the dramatis personae, each of whom is nicer and friendlier than the last. Then she takes me to the kitchenette. There are three boxes of cookies on the counter. I look for a name sticker on them, stating which of the people in the office is the exclusive legal and moral owner of said property, bought with his money, with the egoistic intent of benefiting his own material and spiritual condition.

The cookies belong to everyone, feel free to have some, Jennifer says. To everyone? I give her a suspicious look. What do you mean, to everyone?

Theres coffee here, too, she adds, pointing to a shared machine, with shared capsules in a drawer with shared cups, which can be washed in the shared sink. Theres also a shared refrigerator and a shared microwave machine for the office staff. These people have decided to play mind games with me.

For quite a few days, I arrive at the office in the morning and leave when its dark. My many hours at the institute are spent alone, at the table in the archive library, as Jennifer, displaying endless devotion, plies me with dozens of numbered cartons that contain innumerable fan letters to Rand, letters she wrote castigating rivals from right and left, invitations to lectures, telegrams she sent, notes she scribbled, original handwritten drafts of her literary works.

Theres also a sensational find: a receipt bearing her name, from February 1940, for a $25 donation to the people of Finland to help them repel the Red Armys invasion. In the language of scoop hunters on Twitter: Boom! And in the language of biographers: To take revenge on the communists for what they did to her and her family in 1917, she was ready, in a moment of weakness, to do something for others. Poor woman, she lost it for a moment.

During the many long days I spend there, not once do I catch the members of the order stepping out of the humane and people-loving guise theyd donned in my honor. Not when I go down to have lunch with them, nor when some of them engage me in friendly chitchat. One is the director of the Ayn Rand Institute yes, we can stop calling it an order now a particularly friendly Israeli fellow and a marvelous conversationalist named Tal Tsfany. One fine day in 2018, after making his fortune in high-tech, Tsfany decided to stop advancing his own interests in order to try to get other people to advance their own.

The Israeli connection to the Objectivist movement is not a coincidental one. First, the CEO of the institute from 2000 to 2017 was also a former Israeli, Yaron Brook, who is apparently the most successful spokesperson for Randism in this century, together with the aged Peikoff.

Second, and more important, in regard to the connection with Israel this time regarding its conflict with the Arabs the Objectivist movement espouses a position to the right of the most hawkish members of the Zionist camp. Certainly, the Objectionists say, Israel is far from being an Objectivist paragon: It has a centralist, union-driven economy; its nationalism is suffused with primitive religious collectivism. But when Israel is seen in light of the backward, oppressive, anti-rational dictatorships that surround and want to eradicate it it is nothing but a beacon of light of individual freedom in a dark cave. In Rands words, When you have civilized men fighting savages, you support the civilized men, no matter who they are. Let the IDF win but in a rational way, of course.

Intellectuals needed

Still, it wasnt my Israeliness that prompted the folks at the institute to be so cordial. Theyre nice to anyone who shows an interest in them, to anyone who displays sincere curiosity. The Objectivist movement takes seriously the Randian imperative, according to which all the ills of the West (kowtowing to the weak, apologizing for the achievements of capitalism, hatred of the good for being good) are the result of a philosophical flaw, hence it follows that the correction must be made on a philosophical basis. Capitalism, in their view, is too important to be left to ignorant boors like Donald Trump or Israels Nir Barkat, who preach a free market without understanding either what a market is or what free means.

Accordingly, what the Objectivists need desperately are more intellectuals who will adopt their precepts lock, stock and barrel. And because no sensible intellectual will stick the tip of his nose into a cult, they are vigorously dissociating themselves from that appellation and the truth is that they are indeed far less insular and purist than they were two or three decades ago.

Just before I take my leave of the institutes staff, Jennifer gives me a box of surplus books and invites me to choose one as a gift. Im not even surprised. See you later, I tell them, knowing that they really are nice people, almost normative, that its great to talk to them about subjects that dont occupy any other institute, and that they are really and truly concerned about the future of the human race, which is shackled by an altruistic ethos that threatens to thrust it back into the dark ages.

Faithful to the Randian spirit, I spend the day that remains before my flight home egoistically and rationally wasting a few dollars at the Universal Studios park. I clear my mind by going on the Harry Potter roller coaster. I have a regular habit on roller coasters: During the scariest part, when the G-force forces my lungs into my gut, I start thinking about epistemology.

Nathaniel Branden Rands pupil, lover and colleague, whom she eventually cast off claimed that anyone who truly understands her is bound to agree with her. He was wrong. But whats great about Rand is that everyone is wrong about her. Her ardent admirers see her as the greatest philosopher since Aristotle (shes not); conservatives accuse her of demanding to banish belief in God from the world (she didnt; she only claimed, and rightly, that if everyone were to behave rationally, that belief would uproot itself); leftists maintain that she is a lightweight philosopher (shes not; her Objectivism is fully grounded and consistent, apart from a few minor internal contradictions, which are also debatable). Ayn Rand should be evaluated, and sometimes strongly criticized, for the philosopher she is not for the philosopher she is not.

The tendency of Rands haters is to see her philosophy as a package deal. In this, ironically, they are no different from followers of her cult. But when objectivism is divided into its four tiers, it becomes more useful. It makes no different whether youre Bernie Sanders or Stanley Fischer, Shelly Yacimovich or Nehemia Shtrasler, the CEO of the NGO Latet (To Give) or the chairman of Lakahat (To Take): If you understand Ayn Rand, you will become a better capitalist, social democrat or communist. Her Objectivism is an ideology-sharpener that should belong in every pencil case. Indeed, every pencil you put into it will come out better honed than when it went in. Even today. Especially today.

Itay Meirson is a doctoral student at The Zvi Yavetz School of Historical Studies, Tel Aviv University, where hes studying the intellectual history of the American right.

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I visited the secret lair of the Ayn Rand cult - Haaretz

Former Trump senior economic adviser Steve Moore on how the U.S. can balance safety during coronavirus and reopen the U.S. economy.

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Ayn Rand once said, "Government help to business is just as disastrous as government persecution. ... The only way a government can be of service to national prosperity is by keeping its hands off."

Congress has just approved an economicallybloated $2.2 trillion spending relief bill, an amount more substantial than the GDP of all but a handful of countries. It is only the third massive relief bill, and we've been told several trillion dollars more would have to get spent. Then there are the trillions of dollars more of Federal Reserve Board liquidity injections. We are starting to talk about real money here.

STOCK MARKET'S CORONAVIRUS BOTTOM PROBABLY IN: GOLDMAN SACHS

The politicians believe that sending $1,200 checks to people will "stimulate" the economy. Among the many mistaken provisions of this new law is a welfare benefit to workers that pays them more money if they quit and become unemployed than if they stay on the job.

Here we go again. A decade ago, during the height of the folly of the bank bailouts and trillions of dollars of spending for "shovel-ready projects" (that didn't create jobs but plunged our nation into greater indebtedness), I noted in a Wall Street Journal article that with each successive bailout and multibillion-dollar economic stimulus scheme from Washington, the politicians were reenacting the very acts of economic stupidity that Ayn Rand parodied in her 1,000-page-plus 1957 novel "Atlas Shrugged." In many surveys, "Atlas" rates as the second most influential book of all time behind the Bible.

For those of you who have not read it (first, shame on you!), the moral of the story is that politicians invariably respond to crises -- that, in most cases, they created -- by spewing out new, mindless government programs, laws and regulations. These, in turn, generate more havoc and poverty, which inspires the politicians to spawn even more programs. At which point, the downward spiral repeats itself until there is a thorough societal collapse.

Isn't this precisely what is happening now?

FORD CORONAVIRUS LOSSES EXPECTED TO REACH $600M IN FIRST QUARTER

In the book, the well-meaning politicians pass bills such as the "Anti-Greed Act" to prevent companies and wealthy people from making too much money. Another of my favorites was the "Equalization of Opportunity Act," which required successful people who invented things and started new businesses to share their wealth.

Victoria Scott bicycles along a section of the Grand Concourse that has been temporarily closed to vehicular traffic as the city tests out a pilot program providing more social distancing space during the coronavirus pandemic, Friday, March 27, 2020

Now, in real life, Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders propose legislation like this all the time. They rant daily against "greedy" millionaires and billionaires (though Sanders dropped "millionaires" the moment he became one) and wonder whether the wealth producers of our economy deserve to exist at all. And these two senators were competitive in the Democratic presidential nomination.

We are living through the Ayn Rand dystopia right now. We have given police-state powers to the government to shut down "nonessential businesses" and tell people whether they can play golf or go for a hike. Some of these measures may make sense based on public health, but at what point are we degrading the rights of individuals to choose risks for themselves?

At one point in "Atlas Shrugged," the incompetent rent-seeking politicians finally have to admit that they have brought the economy to its knees with all the do-goodism. Out of desperation, they ask the heroic business owners in society what they must do. "First, abolish the income tax," they are told.

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Sound like a wild-eyed idea today? Guess what? For the $2 trillion-plus that Congress has just spent to protect the economy, we could have completely eliminated the personal income tax on every worker and business this year.

Isn't it abundantly evident which would have been the smarter choice to revitalize our economy?

I can just hear Warren shriek: "This would benefit 'the rich!'" But, of course, the people who are suffering most from the lockdown on the economy and other power grabs by the government today are the lowest-income workers.

In "Atlas Shrugged," everyone gets poor, and if we stay on our current turn toward statism and don't stand up for our rights, we will be poorer and a lot less free.

Stephen Moore is a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation and an economic consultant with FreedomWorks. He is the co-author of "Trumponomics: Inside the America First Plan to Revive the American Economy."

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Ayn Rand's dystopia is here right now and 'Atlas' is shrugging - Fox Business

Freedoms just another word for nothing left to lose. from Me and Bobby McGee by Kris Kristofferson

It appears obvious that the thousands of people demonstrating in an increasing number of state capitals and other places across the country against their governors stay-at-home mandates never got, or rather, never read Kristoffersons memo.

From Michigan, Ohio, and Virginia to California, conservative coalitions are out in force pressuring local and state governments to rescind mandates to shelter in place and allow businesses to reopen immediately. The coalition includes groups of conservative veterans and a network of right-wing and corporate financiers bent on reducing taxes and regulations on industry.

Protestors garnered support and encouragement by the White Houses Anti-Science-In-Chief himself, Donald J. Trump in a series of Tweets:

LIBERATE MICHIGAN! Trump tweeted. LIBERATE MINNESOTA, he continued. LIBERATE VIRGINIA, and save your great 2nd Amendment. It is under siege!

During his daily press Coronavirus briefing, Trump defended his tweets by asserting they were in response to the tough state guidelines. He continued that the protesters demonstrating against the governors, seem to be very responsible people to me.

At this point in the pandemic and its impact on the United States of America, with the extreme lack of a coordinated effort from the White House, the shortages of testing devices, tracking procedures, and medical equipment including personal protective gear, increasing numbers of people infected as deaths mount each moment of every day, how could anyone claim the demonstrators responsible?

Researchers have charted cultures as falling along a continuum with several variables, including Individualism versus Collectivism: the degree of support for and emphasis on individual goals versus common or collective goals. Most of these same researchers place the U.S. and many other Western nations on the Individual side of the continuum

My philosophy, in essence, is 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. Ayn Rand, Appendix to Atlas Shrugged

Ayn Rand, who has become the intellectual center for the economic/political/social philosophy of Libertarianism, constructs a bifurcated world of one-dimensional characters in her novels.

On one side, she presents the noble, rational, intelligent, creative, inventive, self-reliant heroes of industry, of music and the arts, of science, of commerce and banking who wage a noble battle for dignity, integrity, personal and economic freedom for the profits of their labors within an unregulated free market Capitalist system.

On the other side, she portrays the looters represented by the followers, the led, the irrational, the unintelligent, the misguided, the misinformed, the corrupt government bureaucrats who regulate and manipulate the economy to justify nationalizing the means of economic production, who confiscate personal property, who deliver welfare to the unentitled, the lazy, who thereby destroy personal incentive and motivation resulting in dependency.

Welfare Ayn Rand terms unearned rewards, while arguing for a system of laisse-faire Capitalism separating economics and state. In other words, Ayn Rand paints a world in which the evil and misguided takers wage war against the noble and moral makers.

Ayn Rand bristles against some long-held notions of collectivism, of shared sacrifice and shared rewards. Rather, she argues that individuals are not and should not be their brothers and sisters keepers; that one must only do unto oneself; that one must walk only in ones own shoes and not attempt to know the other by metaphorically walking in their shoes; that personal happiness is paramount; the greatest good for you rather than the greatest number of people; it takes the individual to raise a child, not a village.

Ayn Rands Objectivism accords with the axiom, live and let live. Ayn Rand advocates for a rational selfishness. She titled one of her non-fiction books, The Virtue of Selfishness.

As Rand, the current crop of conservative anti-stay-at-home protesters believe in the notion of ruthless individualism and selfishness while society be damned. The days of wild West rugged individualism, however, are over. Either we as a nation change our style of living to consider more so the common good, or else we will certainly and very quickly increase our chances of dying individually and as a nation.

The theory of a Social Contract developed as far back as ancient Greece. Though iterated, reiterated, and reformed by numerous philosophers and public figures, the foundations of this social contract stand on the premise that people live together in community with the agreement that establishes moral, ethical, and overarching political rules of behavior between individuals, groups, and their government in the formation of a civil society.

A violation by any of the signatories individuals, groups, governments jeopardizes the very stability of that progress toward a fully civil society.

We witness politically conservative figures either refusing to sign this contract, or for those who may have previously etched their names, reneging on the terms and stipulations. For them, they abide by the motto: That government is best that governs least.

If these conservative protesters and the White House dont care about or trust politicians, if they dont care about their own health and that of their loved ones and neighbors, they should at least care about and trust the frontline workers police officers, firefighters, members of the National Guard, medical professionals, caretakers, essential services workers who are risking their lives to save ours, and yes, to save the lives of the protesters in this war against an invisible enemy.

SO STAY AT HOME until it is truly safe to venture out.

#StayatHome!

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Rugged Individualism in Times of Pandemic Endangers Human Life Everywhere - The Good Men Project