Index

Ayn Rand and the Neocons

I recently read this article in Slate where the author claimed that he couldn’t understand what attraction Ayn Rand held for the new right.  I guess I can’t understand how he could miss it, but since he missed it, maybe it needs explaining.

For me it was pretty simple.  Take one speech from Beck or Limbo, compare to an Atlas Shrugged protagonist’s harangues, and bingo, mystery solved.  They share everything  - complete egocentricity, total contempt for everybody else, and an insane conviction that they are absolutely and totally correct beyond any shadow of doubt.

The first obvious attraction for the NeoCons is that Ayn Rand believes that the ends justify the means.  Her fanatical faith in her theories matches precisely that of the new religious right and the new economic right.  Her contempt for anybody who dares doubt her matches the “Left Behind” insanity blow-for-blow and sociopathic twist for sociopathic twist.

But why do the neocons need Ayn Rand?  Why does the freak preacher on the corner need a bible - She reinforces and gives credibility to their otherwise insane beliefs.  Just like the “Left Behind” nuts and the biblical inerrantists, the self-evident ludicrousness of the whole new right economics forces the “true believers” to seek constant reinforcement so that their faith remains unwavering (to steal a bible-thumper phrase.)

Since the new right economic beliefs could not survive the onslaught of even a few moments of lucid thought, Ms. Rand allows her readers to escape the inconvenience of thought with another version of prepackaged insanity.  In the best shamanic tradition, she supplies certainty where there is none.

Anybody have a few years’ supply of Benzedrine to help this make sense?