
Why Ayn Rand hated Libertarians - gnosis
http://iowntheworld.com/blog/?p=113321
======
mcantelon
Ayn Rand, it seems, didn't like that libertarians were concerned in any way
with how to provide collective resources. She idealized a lack of concern with
others and one role model of hers was a man named William Edward Hickman who
killed and dismembered a 12 year old girl.

>“Other people do not exist for him, and he does not see why they should,” she
wrote, gushing that Hickman had “no regard whatsoever for all that society
holds sacred, and with a consciousness all his own. He has the true, innate
psychology of a Superman. He can never realize and feel ‘other people.’”

[http://exiledonline.com/atlas-shrieked-why-ayn-rands-
right-w...](http://exiledonline.com/atlas-shrieked-why-ayn-rands-right-wing-
followers-are-scarier-than-the-manson-family-and-the-gruesome-story-of-the-
serial-killer-who-stole-ayn-rands-heart/)

Ayn Rand was an eloquent proponent of sociopathy.

~~~
SatvikBeri
Well, the character she modeled was according to her "A Hickman with a
purpose. And without the degeneracy. It is more exact to say that the model is
not Hickman, but what Hickman suggested to me." Rand certainly didn't advocate
killing children.

She admired one quality of Hickman's. In some ways this is actually a mature
way of viewing the world. People aren't black and white-even supposed heroes
like Gandhi had incredible flaws.

That's not to say her philosophy was right or wrong. Rand experienced
significant powerlessness and oppression during her childhood, and a lot of
her ideas seem to be a reaction to what she saw and felt in Communist Russia.
After having the ideals of altruism and collectivism forced on her for several
years, it's hardly surprising that she would admire one someone who completely
ignored societal rules.

In fact, ordinary people do this all the time. Villains in movies are
considered cool. Many Australian icons were basically criminals. _Butch
Cassidy and the Sundance Kid_ was enormously successful. And so on.

So, it's not really fair to take a few lines out of context and conclude Rand
supported sociopathy. Yes, her philosophy was centered around selfishness-but
she consistently supported helping others and argued that long term self-
interest and long-term societal interest end up in the same place.

~~~
gnosis
Hickman kidnapped and murdered a twelve-year-old girl, cut her body in half,
cut off her arms (possibly while she was still alive), and left her body for
her father to find while intentionally leading her father to believe she was
still alive.

Don't you find it just a tad bit strange that of all the people in the world,
Rand chose to worship and defend this particular man?

It's not like there weren't plenty of individualists throughout history that
weren't nearly as sociopathic.

There's more on Rand's worship of Hickman here:

[http://michaelprescott.freeservers.com/romancing-the-
stone-c...](http://michaelprescott.freeservers.com/romancing-the-stone-
cold.html)

She described Hickman as _"born with a wonderful, free, light consciousness --
[resulting from] the absolute lack of social instinct or herd feeling. He does
not understand, because he has no organ for understanding, the necessity,
meaning, or importance of other people ... Other people do not exist for him
and he does not understand why they should."_

Isn't that just beautiful?

------
mtgx
So what were actually her arguments, other than just calling libertarians
anarchists, her enemies, and mocking them? She just seemed really pissed off
at them for whatever reason. But I don't think I saw any real argument in that
interview.

This interview also made her seem a lot less smart than Republicans have made
her out to be (just based on this interview, I haven't read anything else of
hers). She seemed like your average Fox News moderator.

~~~
gnosis
_"So what were actually her arguments, other than just calling libertarians
anarchists, her enemies, and mocking them?"_

Well, let's see, from the first paragraph:

\- She called Libertarianism _"a mockery of philosophy and ideology"_

\- She accused Libertarians of _"slinging slogans and trying to ride on two
bandwagons"_

Later, she accuses them of entertaining _"amateur political notions"_ and
_"rushing into politics in order to get publicity"_.

She says that Libertarians

\- are based on _"half-baked ideas, and in part on borrowed ideas"_.

\- _"spend their time denouncing me, while plagiarizing my ideas"_.

\- _"are perhaps the worst political group today, because they can do the most
harm to capitalism, by making it disreputable."_

\- would _"like to have an amoral political program"_

I could go on quoting her, but maybe if you actually read the article yourself
you'll see what her "arguments" are.

~~~
phaus
Most of these statements are so vague that she might as well not have made
them. That was his point. The article doesn't give any real insight into her
thought process, unless her thought process was indeed as shallow as this
collection of interviews makes it out to be, which I doubt.

------
phaus
Let's assume her claims about Libertarianism's origins are correct, even
though they aren't.

When you publish a book explicitly detailing your philosophy on the way you
think the world should work (The Virtue of Selfishness), and people end up
adopting parts of your philosophy, you should shut the fuck up, because you
got exactly what you asked for when you published it.

I'm a huge fan of Atlas Shrugged, it's one of the 10 best novels I've ever
read. I think that society can learn something significant from it. I can't
say I'm a fan of it's author, her extremist philosophy, or the cult that was
created in her memory.

------
nollidge
That doesn't really tell you _why_ she hated them, just how vehemently she
did.

~~~
jlarocco
No, I think the answer to the first question explains it pretty well.

She saw libertarians as anarchists, and anarchy as a form of collectivism.

IMO, Ayn Rand is like Richard Stallman in a way. A lot of her points are
valid, and her intentions were good, but she was so over the top that it
turned a lot of people off.

------
obviouslygreen
As someone who's only familiar in passing with both Rand and
Libtertarianism... could someone explain briefly whether/how Libtertarians co-
opt her ideas as repeatedly suggested?

I'm aware that she has some fairly well-distributed literature to her name,
but to claim any "idea" as your own is pretty bold, particularly in an area
that's been puzzled and argued over for much of human history. It seems to me
either she's vastly overstating her own body of work or Libtertarians are/were
doing some truly, painfully obvious plagiarizing to merit such a claim.

~~~
maxharris
Murray Rothbard wrote this to Ayn Rand in a letter dated October 3, 1957:

 _"I now come to the painful part of this letter. For standing as I do in awe
and wonder at the glory and magnitude of your achievement, knowing from early
in the novel that I would have to write you and express in full how much I and
the world owe to you...

When I first met you, many years ago, I was a follower of Mises, but unhappy
about his antipathy to natural rights, which I “felt” was true but could not
demonstrate. You introduced me to the whole field of natural rights and
natural law philosophy, which I did not know existed, and month by month,
working on my own as I preferred, I learned and studied the glorious natural
rights tradition. I also learned from you about the existence of Aristotelian
epistemology, and then I studied that, and came to adopt it wholeheartedly. So
that I owe you a great intellectual debt for many years, the least of which is
introducing me to a tradition of which four years of college and three years
of graduate school, to say nothing of other reading, had kept me in
ignorance."_

------
Apocryphon
None of her statements actually deal with the ideals of libertarianism, just
her problems with their movement/party. A pity, I'd like to see how
objectivism and libertarianism contrast with each other. Ideological battles
are much more entertaining than ad hominems.

