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Ayn Rand (1905-1982) is unique in human history. Scorned by the established critics, she wrote brilliant popular novels that have become permanent best-sellers, and founded a comprehensive philosophical and cultural movement which, decades after her death, is shaking the foundations of the post New Deal American political order.
Ayn Rand Explained gives a comprehensive survey of Rand's wide ranging contributions: her literary techniques; her espousal and then rejection of Nietzschean philosophy; her contradictory attitude to feminism; her dismissal of religious faith; her forays into ethics, epistomology, and metaphysics; the development of her political creed; her influence on--and yet hostility to - both conservatism and libertarianism.
The late Ronald E. Merrill, a graduate of MIT and the University of Oregon, was a scientist entrepreneur who ran his own business in the Los Angeles area. Ho wrote books or venture capital and sundry articles on science, business, and politics.
Preface ix
1 The Controversial Ayn Rand l
Formidable Influence 3
Political Impact 5
Portraits and Memoirs 6
A Muse for Popular Art 9
The New Atlas Shrugged Wave 11
"In the Name of the Best within Us" 12
Against Relativism and Subjectivism 16
The Virtue of Selfishness 17
2 Who Was Ayn Rand? 19
Rand in Hollywood 20
The Atlas Phenomenon 22
The Objectivist Movement 25
Was Objectivism a Cult? 26
The Great Schism of Objectivism 29
Shrinking of the Movement 31
From Individualism to the Morality of Capitalism 34
3 Ayn Rand in Person 37
Partisan Accounts 40
Rand and Her Hangers-on 41
The Owner of Objectivism? 43
No One Owns Objectivism 44
Horrified by Hypocrisy 46
From the Political to the Personal and Back 48
Rand's Personality in Context 51
Ayn and Frank 53
4 The Young Nietzschean 57
Alone Against the World 57
The Evolution of Objectivism 59
The Randian Style 60
Nietzsche's Influence on Rand 62
The Nietzschean Vision 63
Literary Influences 68
Rand's Early Fiction 69
Red Pawn 71
Penthouse Legend 72
We the Living 74
The Theme 75
Trio for Heroes 75
A Cinematic Style 77
Textual Changes in We the Living 79
The Failure of Nietzsche 81
5 Scourge of the Second-Handers 83
The Enigma of Ideal 83
Think Twice 86
The Fountainhead 87
The Break with Nietzsche 89
A Traditional Antithesis 93
The Impossible Villain 94
Intellectual Snobbery 95
A Seamless Patchwork 96
Acquittal Unsatisfactory 97
The Embryo of Objectivism 98
Anthem 98
'The Simplest Thing in the World' 100
6 The Book that Changed the World 101
A Departure in Style 101
Plot, Plot, and Plot 103
The Technique of Philosophical Integration 104
Rand's Heroes: The Roots 107
Dagny Taggart and the Randian Woman 109
Francisco d'Anconia 112
Hank Rearden 112
Who If John Gait? 113
Bit-Part Heroes 114
The Villains 114
The Secondary Heroes 116
Thirty-Six Just Men? 118
Nathaniel Branden's Critique 120
Rand and Repression 121
The Randian Lovers 123
Paradox Resolved 125
Beyond the Taggart Terminal 126
7 Rand the Philosopher 127
Objectivism Versus Academia 128
Metaphysical Roots 130
An Epistemological Radical 132
Rand's Theory of Concepts 133
The Analytic-Synthetic Dichotomy 136
Epistemology in Practice 137
The Objectivist Ethics 139
Ethics and Values: Two Lines of Argument 140
The Randian Argument 142
Ends and Ends in Themselves 143
The Means Test 145
Rand and the Aristotelian Legacy 146
From Is to Ought: Is There Aught or Is All for Nought? 147
What Is the Meaning of 'Life' Anyway? 150
Some Objections to Objectivist Ethics 154
From Leaking Lifeboats to the Asteroid Test 155
The Gait-like Golfer 158
Robert Nozick Versus the Count of Monte Cristo 159
Human Nature and Its Consequences 160
The Ethics of the Future 161
From Theory to How-to 163
Objectivist Esthetics 163
Esthetic Difficulties and Definitions 165
8 Rand's Politics 167
A Political Odyssey 167
The Radical for Capitalism 169
The Goldwater Debacle 170
Roots of the New Conservatism 172
Rand's Critique of Conservatism 173
The Evolution of Libertarianism 175
The Essence of Libertarianism 175
Roots of the Political Conflict 176
Objectivism versus Libertarianism: The Case for the Plaintiff 178
Objectivism versus Libertarianism: The Case for the Defendant 181
Objectivism and the Theory of Government 182
Rand's View of Man and Society 184
The Final Decline 188
The Path Less Traveled 189
9 Ayn Rand's Revolution 193
A Second Crusade? 193
Or the Ivory Tower? 195
The Schoolroom or the Polling Booth 197
Back to the Future 199
What Is to Be Done? 200
Life Support Systems 201
The Tactics of Sanction 202
The First of Their Return… 203
Bibliography 205
Index 213
Anonymous
Posted December 14, 2014
Publisher's Weekly refers to Rand as a much misunderstood thinker. But in fact, it is more accurate to say that Rand's ideas are misrepresented and caricatured by her largely hostile leftist-oriented reviewers. These critics, alarmed by the growth in popularity of her novels and nonfiction writings, choose to issue ad hominem attacks on her personal life, accusing her of hypocrisy, while at the same time, falsely accusing her of denigrating the poor and advocating a dictatorship of the rich. As Marsha Familiaro Enright so skillfully explains in this updated version of Ron Merrill's original text (which was an excellent, but now dated, book), despite the clarity and precision of Rand's writings (or perhaps because of it), reviewers of her works rarely if ever describe the essentials of Rand's philosophy,Objectivism. Mrs. Enright attempts to set the record straight by illustrating exactly what Rand advocated and why she has been the target of a campaign of vituperation. But this is not a book that is completely uncritical of Rand and some of her self-appointed advocates, who may have done as much damage to her legacy as her most vociferous leftist critics. Enright also submits their positions for her critical analysis. This book is one of the few "objective" analyses of Ayn Rand's philosophy, the ideological movement it engendered, and the responses of its supporters and its critics.
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Posted October 27, 2012
Important addition to my library
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Overview
Ayn Rand (1905-1982) is unique in human history. Scorned by the established critics, she wrote brilliant popular novels that have become permanent best-sellers, and founded a comprehensive philosophical and cultural movement which, decades after her death, is shaking the foundations of the post New Deal American political order.
Ayn Rand Explained gives a comprehensive survey of Rand's wide ranging contributions: her literary techniques; her espousal and then rejection of ...