Descartes was not invited to this party

This isn’t about the book itself as much as it is about Rand and her own personal arrogance – because it is really so outstanding it must be mentioned.  In the biographical information given about her in my copy of Atlas, at the back of the book, before other Penguin Classics are recommended, Rand is quoted as saying, “the only philosophical debt [she] acknowledge[s] is to Aristotle.”

 

I’m leaving a space after her statement so that the arrogance can really sink in.  The only philosophy that has influenced her, a woman born in communist Russia, who clearly rebels against communism, a woman writing in the mid 20th century, who blatantly mocks the beginnings of structuralist theory, a woman who wrote, at the beginning of the longest effing monologue in the history of fiction, and I quote, “…for you, who are a human being, the question ‘to be or not to be’ is the question ‘to think or not to think'”.

In other words, human beings’ thinking and existing are intrinsically linked.  Does that sound familiar to anyone?  Does that sound like a philosophical debt?  Why, yes, it does.  I would allow her  to argue that the negative influences (communism, structuralism) that she uses to work against do not have to count as debts, semantically speaking.  But not only does she have the arrogance to make such a statement, she makes such a statement blatantly falsely.

And of course her only influence is Aristotle.  It’s like when people say their favorite writer is Shakespeare – and it’s always bad writers who say this, I swear – are they saying that there haven’t been great writers for the last few hundred years?  And are they actually implying that they are the next good writer since then?  

That’s just a personal tangent-rant, but I really feel like it’s the same odious thing.  And it’s why Rand is able to write the hero-myth story she writes, as I ranted about last post. 

 

I’ve worn myself out a bit today (I’m recovering from an especially vomitous case of food poisoning last night) so I’m going to cut short here and pass the torch to lonely collectivist, should he feel inspired in that un-Randian way.