Oh, Ayn Rand, You Silly Goose

At least once every semester, some student will want to know why there’s no Ayn Rand in any of the political theory courses I teach.

Well, I tell them, it’s because her books are marginal works of fiction filled with intellectually bankrupt pseudo-theory about what you might want to do if your goal is to create a society that would fall apart almost instantaneously.

From now on, though, I’ll just hand them this piece by Eric Hague. It sums up my thoughts on Ayn Rand and her Objectivist nonsense rather nicely.

Here’s my favorite part:

When little Aiden toddled up our daughter Johanna and asked to play with her Elmo ball, he was, admittedly, very sweet and polite. I think his exact words were, “Have a ball, peas [sic]?” And I’m sure you were very proud of him for using his manners.

To be sure, I was equally proud when Johanna yelled, “No! Looter!” right in his looter face, and then only marginally less proud when she sort of shoved him.

The thing is, in this family we take the philosophies of Ayn Rand seriously. We conspicuously reward ourselves for our own hard work, we never give to charity, and we only pay our taxes very, very begrudgingly.

…

That’s why, when Johanna then began berating your son, accusing him of trying to coerce from her a moral sanction of his theft of the fruit of her labor, in as many words, I kind of egged her on. Even when Aiden started crying.

You see, that Elmo ball was Johanna’s reward for consistently using the potty this past week. She wasn’t given the ball simply because she’d demonstrated an exceptional need for it—she earned it. And from the way Aiden’s pants sagged as he tried in vain to run away from our daughter, it was clear that he wasn’t anywhere close to deserving that kind of remuneration. By so much as allowing Johanna to share her toy with him, we’d be undermining her appreciation of one of life’s most important lessons: You should never feel guilty about your abilities. Including your ability to repeatedly peg a fellow toddler with your Elmo ball as he sobs for mercy.

Read the rest of “Our daughter isn’t a selfish brat; your son just hasn’t read Atlas Shrugged” here.

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