Review Corner II

On JohnGalt and Dagny's good recommendation, I picked up a copy of "Philosophy: Who Needs It?" by Ayn Rand.

I credit Ms. Rand as an influence. Her writings were like the bracing pitcher of ice water that is thrown over a sleeping drunk in an old western. "Atlas Shrugged," "The Fountainhead," "Anthem," and "Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal" shook me out of my folk Marxist stupor; her writings and the Reagan presidency really established my first serious adult worldview.

I had gone on to other sources and had not read Rand since Reagan’s first term. "Philosophy: Who Needs It?" was a good trip back -- highly appropriate to some recent arguments on this blog and good example of her clarity in thought and prose. I cannot list any serious grievance with anything in the book and I came out with new insights: the anti-statist objection to pulling out of Bretton Woods, the difference between duty and responsibility (argued on this blog as well) -- good stuff.

The Nixon-era essays and speeches hold up well for 30year old political discourse. I see some things she feared that have gotten better, but the dismantling of academia and the intellectual class are much worse. Her call to oppose those who teach our young people not to think is well heard. As is her call to have a philosophical center, based on reason, and to build your ideas on that foundation. This was the reason I was given this assignment; my political pragmatism seems un-centered to the Randians around here. (I don't mean "Randians" as insult and hope it is not taken as one.).

So, maybe somebody can explain to me why I enjoy and agree with her writings, yet I can never find a point of agreement with any of those who follow her writings -- a mystery for the ages.

She does caution against too close an affiliation with political parties, and I suspect she would not appreciate much of my pragmatism. Yet her homeland was liberated by a man of faith who was voted into office with a coalition of Catholics and Christians. Does anyone sense that she would have disapproved stridently of President Reagan?

In short, I enjoyed the book and found no quarrel with it. Anybody expecting a road to Damascus conversion away from political pragmatism will be disappointed. Perhaps I didn't get it.

UPDATE: To follow ThreeSources style, I provide a link to the book on Amazon. The good news is that it is only $7.99 or $15.98 with another (I snagged "For The New Intellectual"). The bad news is that these are Signet's "Centennial Edition" paperbacks and mine, at least, was printed in microscopic type on bad paper with margins so uneven the page numbers bled off the page.

Posted by jk at April 23, 2006 4:11 PM