Newt's Brilliant Ayn Rand Marriage Strategy

I think most people have completely failed to imagine the possibility of Newt Gingrich's strategic brilliance this week, and it demonstrates the capability of a visionary leader with a solid grounding in our nation's exceptional history to move beyond what seems possible.

This week's maneuver in which the second Mrs. Gingrich (M-G^2.0) described Newt's suggestion and exploration of a novel way to preserve a marriage, which is the foundational bedrock of our culture, was misunderstood by many as a setback when it was actually a game-changing repositioning by the Gingrich campaign.

Cain-supporter Stephen Colbert came the closest to understanding, when he pointed out that "at least Newt asked permission. That’s a Southern gentleman. That’s what Robert E. Lee would have done."

M-G^2.0's outreach to married women was also a brilliantly conceived attempt to connect with Ron Paul's LLV's (Libertarian Leaning Voters). Newt's beyond Mitt Romney; it's a mop-up operation now, and it's time to bring the Apostate's Apostles into Newt's Big Tent where they belong.

Sometimes public leaders have to speak in code. For instance, when Newt talks about janitors and food stamps, we know what he's referring to. It's fun being in on a stealth conversation.

When Marianne Gingrich (M-G^2.0) tells her story of Newt asking for an "arrangement" or an "understanding", those code words are appealing to two distinct constituencies with just one message.

• He appeals to Romney's Francophile supporters, who know that if this were France, nobody would consider this cinq à sept newsworthy.
• He directly channels the Libertarian spirit of bold individuality and appeals directly to Ron Paul's core followers.

Two targets, one shot. Brilliant.

Ayn Rand famously wanted to have an affair with her young assistant Nathaniel Blumenthal, so she worked it out with her own husband and then approached the young man's wife proposing an arrangement to her two employees. Ayn Rand was faithful to that arrangement until the young man foolishly reneged on his committment^2.0 to Ayn. Which was very painful to her, and we've all known pain in our lives.

By having Marianne Gingrich (M-G^2.0) tell the story of Newt ending up in the same philosophical position viz-a-vis monogamy, Newt realizing the way to save our foundational bedrock institution of marriage was to accomodate the outsourcing that has made our economy a place where job creators can do their best, unencumbered by paperwork and legacy standards, Marianne was speaking directly to Ron Paul's LLV's (Libertarian Leaning Voters) who understand Libertarian code-words.

In fact, when you look at the history of Newt's relationships, you'll see his continuous commitment to Randy philosophy (a philosophy which resulted in Rand's being considered Cougar Zero). Early polling shows support for Ron Paul dropped 35% overnight, and most of those voters indicate they're moving into Newt's Big Tent.

Newt is synthesizing the individual-driven Objectivist philosophy of Ayn Rand with the rebirth we see in Christian forgiveness. You get into the new relationship with Ayn Rand; you get out of it with Christianity. Only a mind with the inquisitive breadth of Newt Gingrich could manage this fusion. That's why We Need Newt.

Newt Gingrich. Ayn Rand.

• They share a vision to save Marriage.
• They share a vision for America.

---

Anyway, how does a guy with three wives end up criticizing a Mormon?

1957 BBC Pasta Harvest Documentary

From the 1957 BBC documentary:

Sequel to Atlas Shrugged Authorized

According to Locus Magazine:

Given that the original novel features an amazing new metal alloy, a secret valley protected by force field, and an unlimited new energy source, we felt that a science fiction perspective was key to carrying forward Ayn Rand's ideas," said Rand estate spokesman Perry Leikoff. "And what better science fiction writers to chose than two collaborators who were also past winners of the Prometheus Award given out by the Libertarian Futurist Society?"

Consigning Ayn Rand to the Dustbin of History

I believe I am now done with Ayn Rand, but before consigning her to the dustbin of history*, I'd like to present a light-hearted retrospective of her work, lest we be all sturm und drang .



It's just ludicrous to me that people would justify dismantling the world's finest air traffic control system based on Ayn Rand's thoughts -- and if this is the best justification they could identify, then perhaps there really isn't any justification for it.

I'm going to stop beating this dead horse now, and move on to discussing the corporate greed and practical implications of Corporatizing the ATC system.

* that's a quote from Trotsky, I thought it was appropriate.

Ayn Rand and ATC Facilities

I've written previously about the cult of Ayn Rand, and I've also written about the Reason Foundation's NextGen marketing campaign to invest in new technolgies by moving ATC to a Corporate model.

I'd like to, if I may, take the time to connect the dots between Ayn Rand, her disciples, and the air traffic control system. And then I'd like to wrap it into a philosophical meta-question and ask: who do you trust more, Government or Corporations? (Or perhaps, who do you distrust least?)

The United States currently has the finest aviation system, and the finest air traffic control system, in the world. It routinely accomplishes tasks that other ATC systems cannot. It handles a volume that no other system can.

The primary challenge to the existing US air traffic system (the world's finest, I'll repeat) is Corporatisation, a ten-dollar-name for moving the ATC function out of government and handing it over to Corporations. The choice of words is always critical - are you pro-abortion or pro-choice - and so the industry chooses to use soft terms like "Privatise". I'm going to refer to it as Corporatise.

The aviation-industrial complex sees a high-value-added government activity that the industry would prefer to have as their own profit center. They see that there is profit to be made (money taken out of the population), and currently nobody is taking that profit. They want it.

The industry has rented a think-tank to generate a plausible rationale for their takeover. As this blog has discussed earlier, the role of a think-tank is to generate messages (propaganda) that move the Overton window, moving things that were once unthinkable into the range of the acceptable. Think tanks do this by planting marginally extreme messages that make the previously unthinkable seem reasonable by contrast.

The ATC industry's mouthpiece is the Reason Foundation and Robert Poole. Robert Poole is the poster child of Corporatization, and the industry funnels money into him so that he will do their work. The Reason Foundation and Poole are shills, advancing the industry's message under the guise of putting America back on track.


Ayn Rand was a Hollywood novelist who wrote epic fictions of heroic individuals, bodice-ripping romance, and a marriage-free, childless future driven by amoral, selfish self-interest. She was an illegal immigrant, an atheist, and perhaps the original Cougar. (NTTAWWT). Let me be clear that I have nothing against novelists, but I wouldn't use Richard Bach to develop an essential safety system, and I wouldn't use Ayn Rand's books either.


Within Rand's worldview, government should have very few functions (defend the borders); individuals should decide what's best for themselves. For instance, Rand felt that the government shouldn't staff police departments as it gave them a monopoly on the means of legal violence; she preferred to leave it to individuals to make their own arrangements (ie,militias). Also, Rand holds that government should not establish paper currency because it's an intrusion into the private arrangements of individuals. (I'd like to know how many Randians are eschewing their government-developed flu shots on principle.)

As Whittaker Chambers said, "Since a great many of us dislike much that Miss Rand dislikes, quite as heartily as she does, many incline to take her at her word." Rand condemned so many bad things (Communism, Stalinism), you begin to think you agree with her. But when you look at what she advocates, there's often no common ground.

In this YouTube video developed by the Reason Foundation, Robert Poole explains how Ayn Rand's version of extremely limited government drives the "philosophical" justification for the Reason Foundation:



Robert Poole identifies Ayn Rand's work as the basis for the Reason Foundation's claim to legitimacy. The temptation is to regard that as a point that might be examined and discussed, and if the Reason Foundation were a true well of discourse that would be true. I believe, however, that the Reason Foundation is just a useful front, and that the sloppy Randian rhetoric provides a dense intellectual cover for their corporate takeover of an inherently government function.

I think we should keep Ayn Rand and Robert Poole out of our ATC facilities.
(Hat tip to Don Brown for the video!)

Who was John Galt? Zinovy Rosenbaum, the Father of Ayn Rand.

Ayn Rand Series Index

Who was John Galt? John Galt is the fictional representation of Zinovy Zacharovich Rosenbaum (born in Breslitovsk, Russia on November 18, 1869), the father of Alisa Zinov'yevna Rosenbaum, who later became known as Ayn Rand.

Rand was born Alisa Zinov'yevna Rosenbaum in 1905, into a middle-class family living in Saint Petersburg, Russia. She was the eldest of the three daughters (Alisa, Natasha, and Nora) of Zinovy Zacharovich (Z.Z.) Rosenbaum and Anna Borisovna Rosenbaum, largely non-observant Jews. Her father was a chemist and a successful pharmaceutical entrepreneur.

In 1917, Rand was twelve at the time of the Russian revolution. Opposed to the Tsar, Rand's sympathies were with Alexander Kerensky. Rand's family life was disrupted by the rise of the Bolshevik party. Her father's pharmacy was confiscated by the Soviets, and the family temporarily fled to the Crimea. At sixteen, Rand returned with her family to Saint Petersburg.



She enrolled at the University of Petrograd, where she studied in the department of social pedagogy, majoring in history. Her formal study of philosophy amounted to only a few courses, and her study of key figures was limited to excerpts and summaries.

As a "non-proletarian," Rand was "purged" from the university shortly before completing. However, bowing to pressure from foreign intellectuals, the communists relented and allowed many of the expelled students to complete their work and graduate, which Rand did in 1924. She subsequently studied for a year at the State Technicum for Screen Arts.


Ayn Rand's essential life story is about the mobs who took away her father's business and subjected her family to unexpected hardships. In her fiction, her villians are the mob, and her heroes are substitute father figures, who were smart enough and brave enough to beat the unruly crowds at their own game. There are no children in her novels, since they were extraneous to the key story of her and her father.



John Galt is Ayn Rand's literary portrait of the father she wished she had.

Who was John Galt? He was Zinovy Rosenbaum, the father of Alisa Rosenbaum.

Ayn Rand and John Galt : Anarchists

Ayn Rand Series Index

Who was John Galt?

John Galt, the inventor who was himself only an invention of Ayn Rand's mind, rejected the existing government, economy, and society. He withdrew from the prevalent culture - physically, economically, spiritually - and developed his own alternative economy and social system in Galt's Gulch.


The story itself appears to be (at best) a derivative of The Driver, by Garet Garreth, which is somewhat in conflict with Rand's stated position in favor of intellectual property rights.

John Galt was an Anarchist

John Galt's Oath is instructive: "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." I'm trying to imagine my relationship with Princes Charles if the Founding Fathers had felt like John Galt.

What do Anarchists believe?

First, there's the dichotomy of what a scheme professes and how it exists in the world. You could criticize Communism, and hear "the problem is with the Russian implementation of Communism, not the essence of Communism". So let's talk about professed, theoretical anarchy.

Essentially, Anarchy (an-archy) is a system of no-rulers, of individuals living on terms they define. Anarchism is the belief that people can organize themselves without having someone tell them what to do. Anarchists believe that it is better for everyone to have a direct say, instead of having leaders or bosses make decisions for them. Anarchists also believe that participation (in society, in government, in an economy) should never be compulsory. (link)

What did Ayn Rand / John Galt believe?

Rand believes in gold as the only true medium of exchange. In her utopia, depicted in Atlas Shrugged and symbolized by “Gault’s Gulch”, cash is worthless because there is no value in a piece of paper just because a government assigns it a value. Gold is the only medium of exchange in her paradise. When Ragner returns wealth to the producers he does not use paper, he gives Reardon bars of gold. Rand's admiration of the dollar sign as a symbol of wealth is only consistent while that dollar is worth some amount of gold.

Anarcho-Capitalism

John Galt was not just a generic anarchist; he was an Anarcho-Capitalist, an anarchist who specifically rejects a monopoly economy or an imposed economy, and who rejects currency because he disputes government's legitimacy to assign value to paper scrips.

What do Anarcho-Capitalists Believe?

Anarcho-capitalism is an anarchist philosophy that is against the idea of political government and a compulsory economy, and for voluntary, economic government through free market capitalism mediated by supply and demand.

Anarcho-capitalists think that people can protect themselves without any government. Instead of stopping intrusion with laws, people could protect their own things, or agree to pay other people such as insurers, and private defenders to protect them through the marketplace. Anarcho-capitalists say that the government is a thief because it takes taxes away from people against their will, and keeps them from making unfettered agreements between themselves. (link) This is completely consistent with Rand/Galt's beliefs.

By accepting an axiomatic definition of private property and property rights, anarcho-capitalists deny the legitimacy of a state on principle:
"... the ethics of private property is also incompatible with the existence of a state defined as an agency that possesses a compulsory territorial monopoly of ultimate decision-making (jurisdiction) and/or the right to tax."

Murray Rothbard was a preeminent 20th-century anarcho-capitalist. "I define anarchist society as one where there is no legal possibility for coercive aggression against the person or property of any individual. Anarchists oppose the State because it has its very being in such aggression, namely, the expropriation of private property through taxation, the coercive exclusion of other providers of defense service, and all of the other depredations and coercions that are built upon these two invasions of individual rights."

What do Anarcho-Capitalists say about Ayn Rand?

In the late 1950s, Anarchist Murray Rothbard was briefly involved with Ayn Rand. Rothbard admired Rand’s book Atlas Shrugged and even wrote to her saying so. After a few brief encounters the two had a falling out and to this day their followers continue the rivalry. Why they fell out is unknown, but rumor was that Rand gave the agnostic Rothbard an ultimatum to divorce his Presbyterian wife within six months. Rothbard did not and it is said that Rand’s group (the “collective”) held a trial in his absence and removed him from the group... Rothbard regarded Rand as psychotically running a cult and wrote The Sociology of the Ayn Rand Cult about that.

Who was John Galt? John Galt was an Anarcho-Capitalist

He seems like a rather unlikely role model for American patriots who attend Tea Parties.

Ayn Rand Series Index

Ayn Rand, John Galt, and Labor Unions

Ayn Rand Series Index

The Pope is pro-union. (I mention the Pope because (1) he's a much more credible, moral, and educated person than I am. No disrespect. and (2)because I hope to return to the topic of unions shortly). Also, Rand-boi's are fond of writing hypothetical discussions between Ayn Rand and various holders of that good office, and I'd like to explore an area of clear disagreement.

Ayn Rand, on the other hand, was strongly anti-union:

The artificially high wages forced on the economy by compulsory unionism imposed economic hardships on other groups—particularly on non-union workers and on unskilled labor, which was being squeezed gradually out of the market. Today’s widespread unemployment is the result of organized labor’s privileges and of allied measures, such as minimum wage laws. For years, the unions supported these measures and sundry welfare legislation, apparently in the belief that the costs would be paid by taxes imposed on the rich. The growth of inflation has shown that the major victim of government spending and of taxation is the middle class. Organized labor is part of the middle class—and the actual value of labor’s forced “social gains” is now being wiped out.

Who Was John Galt?

John Galt was the hero of Ayn Rand's most successful book Atlas Shrugged, the best work she'd ever done (which she dedicated to both her husband and her lover). Unsurprisingly, her younger Rand-boi Nathanial Branden is also staunchly anti-union.

Ayn Rand's Objectivist philosophy was directly against organized societies of mutual obligation; she was all about rugged individualism. She saw humanity as Producers and Moochers. The Producers created value. The Moochers (that would be me, apparently) are people who mooch off the system powered by the Producers. In a thousand ways - taxes, laws, rules, charities, safety nets - the Moochers take from the Producers, with no justification other than the larger number of Moochers and their effective Moocher rhetoric.

Her philosophy can be understood in light of her father, a business owner and Producer who had his property and position taken away by the Bolsheviks. In truth, if you're shallow like me, what you need to know is that Ayn Rand was scared as a child by mobs who took her Daddy's business, leaving the family struggling, and sending her to the United States where she became an illegal immigrant, a screen writer, wife of an American, a celebrity, and a novelist (in that order).

John Galt was a Union Activist

In Atlas Shrugged, John Galt was a mysterious figure initially introduced as a suspicious character who was involved in the absence of engineers, financiers, and other Producers. As the plot unfolds, we learn that John Galt was been organizing the Producers to band together and withhold their labors from the world at large.

Offended by government-imposed "takings", and rejecting socialism and Big Government, he withdraws from society and persuades other capitalist creators to join him in his strike, his voluntary withdrawal of his labor from the economy. (The original title of the book was The Strike.)

John Galt was a Union Organizer

So the hero of Atlas Shrugged, John Galt, speeds around the globe, inciting like-minded men to join ranks with him for their mutual benefit, and to withdraw their efforts and labor that are being unjustly taken from them without due compensation.

Holy Cesar Chavez! John Galt was a Union Organizer! Who knew?

John Galt was a Strike Leader

In fact, the working title of the book was The Strike. From John Galt's speech (spanning 90 pages in most editions):

"We are on strike, we, the men of the mind.

“We are on strike against self-immolation. We are on strike against the creed of unearned rewards and unrewarded duties. We are on strike against the dogma that the pursuit of one’s happiness is evil. We are on strike against the doctrine that life is guilt.

"We, the men of the mind, are now on strike against you in the name of a single axiom, which is the root of our moral code, just as the root of yours is the wish to escape it: the axiom that existence exists.

"If you want to know what you lost when I quit and when my strikers deserted your world-stand on an empty stretch of soil in a wilderness unexplored by men and ask yourself what manner of survival you would achieve and how long you would last if you refused to think, with no one around to teach you the motions...

"I have taught my strikers that the answer you deserve is only: ‘Try and get it.’

"I have done by plan and intention what has been done throughout history by silent default. There have always been men of intelligence who went on strike, in protest and despair, but they did not know the meaning of their action.

"...the man who gives up rather than give in, the man who functions at a fraction of his capacity, disarmed by his longing for an ideal he has not found-they are on strike, on strike against unreason, on strike against your world and your values.

Atlas Schlepped

John Galt was Mother Jones, Ned Ludd, Joe Hill and Nikola Tesla rolled into one. People read Atlas Shrugged and see themselves in John Galt. I have news: You're no John Galt. Neither am I. He's a messianic inventor-philosopher, a real Nietzschean UberMan. And that's okay. It's a work of fiction. A lot like the more recent Da Vinci Code, it's just a fictional story; it can only go wrong when people try to make it something else.

Let's be fair

John Galt was organizing a strike by self-selected elites against the common man, but he was a union organizer and a strike leader nevertheless. To that extent, and only to that extent, I salute John Galt.

The Lady Protests Too Much

In the end, Ayn Rand's condemnation of labor unions, social adhesiveness, and mutual obligation is incongruous with her hero's activity. More to the point, John Galt's key activity is inconsistent with Ayn Rand's selfish egotism.

Ayn Rand Series Index

The Ayn Rand Affair

Ayn Rand Series Index

I would like to write about the Ayn Rand affair, but it may not be the one that comes to mind first.

Rand is described by her cult-like following as a philosopher, but in fact she is a Hollywood script-writer and story teller. These are admirable fields, but they do not rise to philosophy. To say that she is a philosopher is to say that Tom Cruise is a bishop, or that Jesse Jackson is a diplomat.

Rand was born Alisa Rosenbaum in St. Petersburg, Russia, in 1905. Her father was a chemist and a successful pharmaceutical entrepreneur. In 1917, the Russian Revolution saw mobs seizing the property of Jews and the wealthy; her father's business was taken from them. She graduated from Saint Petersburg University and, fascinated by American movies, spent a year studying screenwriting.

She got a visa to go to New York, overstayed her paperwork and went to Hollywood. She struggled, wrote, and found success as a screenwriter. Her oevre focused on the conflict between the individual and the state, between the successful and the mobs who lived off their work, and in general her narratives recapitulated her family's experience at the hands of the Bolsheviks.

She found a ready audience in America. Although she rejected God and religion, and eschewed altruism, the safety net, the New Deal and social programs, her strident anti-Communism found favor in the 1950s. Her's was a perspective of "ethical egoism", and she advocated a rational, economic selfishness.

She attracted a cult-like following that met in New York salons. Her coterie included Alan Greenspan, and a very young admirer named Nathan Blumenthal. Usually, when people talk about the Ayn Rand affair, they talk about the married Rand and the married Blumenthal, some 29 years her junior.

In that scenario, Ayn Rand decided that she wanted Blumenthal, felt that she was justified in pursuing the young married man, and suggested to both Blumenthal's wife and to Rand's husband that it was in their rational self-interest to support her desire. Remarkably, since her husband and both the Blumenthal's depended on Ayn Rand for income, all the parties acceded to her proposal, proving the golden rule - the one with the gold, rules. In an earlier post, I refer to Ayn Rand as Cougar Zero.

Ayn Rand's view of sex is that it's an expression of positive self-esteem. There's a lot of self-help pop-psych in her books.

Blumenthal was Rand's muse, and their time together was her most productive as a writer. In 1957 when she completed Atlas Shrugged, considered by her fans to be her best work, she dedicated the book to both her husband and to young Blumenthal.

Nathan Blumenthal changed his name to Nathaniel Branden in honor of Rand. Note the letter-work; Branden shuffles into Ben Rand, a Hebrew expression of "Son of Rand". A Fruedian could find a thesis in that.

Rand declared Blumenthal/Branden to be her intellectual heir, and together they incorporated the Nathanial Branden Institute (NBI), which sold her books and speeches, and advocated her cause. Young Branden's fortunes were intertwined with his matron's largesse, and he became an ardent advocate of her Objectivism.

Alas, the virtuous and noble decision-making that led Rand to have an affair with her employee Blumenthal was not thoroughly inculcated in the young lad, and he began another affair with an actress named Patrecia Wynand (the last name was given to her by Rand). Rand, who considered her own affair with Blumenthal completely justified, took umbrage at his other assignations and severed all ties with Blumenthal and his Institute. She also expelled Blumenthal's wife from the inner circle, because the wife (Mrs. Blumenthal) had failed to inform Rand of her husband's cheating on Rand. The tale of the noble Russian love descended into Greek Tragedy.

Many All have sinned. Many philosophers have failed to live up to their theoretical structures. They are only people, after all. What makes Rand's excursion different is that she defended her affair as the legitimate and logical conclusion of her philosophy.

This is not a post about Ayn Rand's affair with a married fanboy. This is a post about the American public's affair with Ayn Rand and her stories.

The Ayn Rand Affair

The most significant Ayn Rand affair is the story of America's embrace of her stories and her muddled, selfish values.

Sales of her books are up since the economy went sour and since President Obama began talking about higher tax rates. Successful people talk about "going John Galt" and withdrawing part of their efforts. True Randians would look at these people and say, "I know John Galt, and you're no John Galt".

In 2011, we may be treated to the new movie, Atlas Shrugged, reportedly with Angelina Jolie as the heroine. Here's the IMDB plot synopsis:

Dagny Taggart is a railroad heiress trying to keep both her integrity and her family's railroad afloat. She faces corrupt government, the callous incompetence of her own brother, and the ongoing loss of her best people. She begins to detect a pattern, and suspects a sinister force working against her.

One by one, the best and brightest industrialists in the country are disappearing overnight, abandoning their businesses to be cannibalized by corrupt political interests. She realizes that someone, some destroyer, is working at cross-purposes against her. She knows she must somehow beat him if she wants Taggart Transcontinental to survive.

She pursues the mystery cross-country. She knows the time for saving her railroad, and maybe staving off the collapse of the industrialized world, is growing short. The revelations she finds will ultimately challenge her assumptions, and force her to choose between defending the status quo or leaving everything she's valued behind.

In all of her stories, Rand's characters reject the claims and bonds of society, and see the population as an undisciplined mass relying on the creative people to advance society and meet their needs. The relationships depicted are volatile and short-lived, and the sexual relationships are fetishised and somewhat rapine. Her heroes withdraw from society and live in relative seclusion, their economy sustained by a deus ex machine, a free energy source invented by John Galt. Although Rand depicts her ideal man, Galt, as an examplar for all to strive to become, in truth he's Nicholas Tesla, Superman, and Nietzschze all rolled into one. Mostly Nietzschze.

What I find remarkable is that Rand's fictions would find such affinity in the United States. The ethical egoism she espouses is not an American spirit, it is the spirit of the tyrant or the despot; I will do what is good for me. I will not help you, unless it is good for me. You should not help me, unless it is good for you.

Let's do a a little exercise. It's like this. There's you, Charlie, Ted, and Ayn. You're each going to complete a survey, share the results with the others, and reflect on the degree to which you're similar people. Here's the results of the survey:

	You	C.Manson	T.Kaczinsky	A.Rand
Corporations should stand on their own, without gov't bailouts	Unsure	Agree	Agree	Agree
Welfare programs can interfere with accountability for bad decisions	Agree	Unsure	Agree	Agree
Gov't should leave me alone	Agree	Agree	Agree	Agree
Gov't should pay more respect to individual rights	Agree	Agree	Agree	Agree
IQ score?	101	121	115	105
Gov't is part of the problem	Slightly Agree	Not Sure	Agree	Agree
What do you write?	blog comments	songs	manifestos	screenplays

Based on that analysis, I'd say you're compatible with some pretty interesting characters, wouldn't you? It's true that Chuck Manson is slightly discordant, but you align well with Ted and Ayn.

My little exercise is prompted by a 1957 article written by Whittaker Chambers (yes, him) about Ayn Rand, saying... Since a great many of us dislike much that Miss Rand also dislikes, quite as heartily as she does, many people seem inclined to support her on other issues. Ayn Rand condemns things that most Americans are prone to condemn — but when you look at what she's in favor of, she quickly diverges from ethical behavior.

Chambers, I believe, has struck upon the core of her popularity - on the surface, she resonates with American individualism and initiative. Beneath the veneer, her body of work is selfish, hedonistic, and athiest, and is such a personality cult that her followers approach cult status.

I think that Rand's audience is generally immature — young economists, young women, and people fallen on hard times who seek to break free of society and strike out on their own.

Why is Any Rand popular among young readers?

• writes about sex
• writes about angst
• writes about finding your true place
• her followers pay professors to use her books in class.

Have your own Ayn Rand Affair

Objectivism isn't just an academic exercise, it's a way of life, and you to can mix with other singles Producers who seek like-minded, self-centered, rationally selfish people. Check out TheAtlaSphere.com, the Ayn Rand dating site. Odds of scoring on the first date? 83.7% I'd love to see a long-term study of the kids that come out those relationships. If there are any. You'll notice there's no children caused by the relationships in her books.

Ayn Rand Series Index

Cougar Zero

I don't generally watch TV, with the one exception of The Office, which has become a family ritual. Wednesday morning I found myself in a Doctor's waiting room, and there was a news show on the television with a feature segment on "Cougars". Graduates of the H.L. Mencken School of Old School Journalism will be pleased to know that the newsroom team really did a great job on this hard news story.


The reason for the news show on Cougars is that the trend has escalated to the point at which it reaches mainstream endorsement: the introduction of The Cougar, a television series exploiting exploring the phenomenon.

A Cougar, apparently, is a financially successful "older woman" who enjoys the company of younger men. This is apparently something to be celebrated and shown to children on Wednesday evenings - but after a show called Wife Swapping became mainstream, who's to say?

The nominal focus of the Cougar television show is a 40-year old woman, a mother of four, and a successful realtor in Arizona. Fact Check Opportunity: Are any realtors in Arizona successful right now? I wouldn't think so.

Sidebar: We put shows like this on TV, we beam them around the world, and then we wonder why Ahmadinejad (the little guy who can't figure out a necktie) thinks we're a decadent society.

Ostensibly, the cougar mindset is motivated by their own interest, and they have the means and the social acumen to acquire it. They're after what they want, and they make no apologies for it. (More on that later.)

We must point out that these putative Cougars have merely attained what some men have been accomplishing for a long time. We have a name for them, too -- lechers.

Objections:

• I don't find the age differences unsettling, and I don't care which gender is older. I do find the economic and power differences disturbing. I'm not sure that a relationship between a wealthy 40-year old with a hungry 20-something can be said to be truly a matter of choice, any more that Sally Hemings (the slave) was free to choose a relationship with Thomas Jefferson (the president and her owner). I agree with Catherine Mackinnon's assertion that consent is "free exercise of choice under conditions of equality of power"
• Why do we support entertainments that encourage unacceptable behaviors? How do we set our families in front of shows with youngsters competing for sexual attention, how do we objectify junior, poorer people, and then act surprised at sexual harassment?

So this is a trend, it's a new vehicle for titillating television, it's sensational and applies to base instincts (so it's going to be successful), it's a way to get people to watch advertising. Check, check, check. It's sweeping the globe. It's the hot new thing. How do we Objectively come to grasp with this phenomena? How would we approach this if it were, in fact, a social situation sweeping the globe? We would take these steps: --

• define the phenomena
  
• identify the environs
  
• track the pattern
  
• identify Patient Zero

Defining the Age Range of 'Normal' Relationships : The Formula

There is a formula used to describe the acceptable age range for relationships in Western society. I don't know who made this formula. The specifics are that the younger person's age has to be at least half of the older person's age, plus seven. This results in the following chart of acceptable age ranges:

A relationship outside of these boundaries, with a woman as the older partner, is considered a Cougar relationship.

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The Environs: Where Does The Cougar Phenomenon Happen?

I'd like to suggest this is a trend out of Hollywood, both in terms of movie industry people and movie industry products. I don't believe this happens much in Youngstown or Buffalo. You'll see this among "actual" movie people such as Demi Moore and Ashton Kuschner, and among movie characters such as Jeanine Stiffler (American Pie), Mrs. Robinson (The Graduate) and Norma Desmond (Sunset Blvd).

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Patient Zero Cougar Zero

Identifying Patient Zero in an epidemiological study is the Holy Grail. Researchers believe they know who Patient Zero was for HIV/AIDS, and for the recent 2009 H1N1 Flu. Who was Cougar Zero?

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Who Was Cougar Zero?

Ayn Rand (born Alisa Rosenbaum, 1905, in Russia) was a successful Hollywood script writer. She wrote stories about strong individuals within a perspective of rational egotism, or rational selfishness, and laissez-faire capitalism; her movie scripts include The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. She did not support God, religion, or social obligations. Her writing, to some extent, provides the intellectual basis of today's Libertarian Party.

Although readers enjoy her books, her beliefs fall short of philosophy. She was a Hollywood script writer with money and a circle of admirers. Considering her a philosopher (or a role model) is like hoping your children grow up to emulate Madonna or Shirley MacLain.

Rand developed a coterie of followers in New York City that called themselves The Collective. Rand and a young graduate student (25 years younger) named Nathan Blumenthal (he later changed his name to Nathaniel Branden) became close. Although they were each married to other people, Rand is said to have coordinated approval for their affair among the spouses, asserting to his wife and her husband that it was in their financial interest to support her assignations. This unconventional arrangement was completely consistent with her philosophy of economic self-interest.

Although there have certainly been Cougars throughout history, in our modern times I believe that Ayn Rand is Cougar Zero. She should be the spokesperson for Cougar Zero, canned bourbon and diet soda sold in Australia by Foster's.

I'd like to make this point: I don't disapprove of Ayn Rand because she had an affair. People make mistakes; people fall short of their beliefs. It's not that. I disapprove because this was not a mistake, but rather the arrogant, inevitable conclusion of her selfish psuedo-schlock.

Let's review the Cougar perspective and see how Ayn Rand matches up with it. Earlier I wrote,

Ostensibly, the cougar mindset is motivated by their own interest, and they have the means and the social acumen to acquire it. They're after what they want, and they make no apologies for it.

There's been a real focus on Ayn Rand and "Going John Galt" lately. I think that before anyone follows John Galt, they should take a good look at his mother.

Ayn Rand Series Index

Ayn Rand Series

1. Ayn Rand: Cougar Zero
   
2. The Ayn Rand Affair
   
3. Ayn Rand, John Galt, and Labor Unions
   
4. Ayn Rand and John Galt: Anarchists
   
5. Who was John Galt? Zinovy Rosenbaum