On Reading Ayn Rand

I recently finished reading Ayn Rand's "The Romantic Manifesto."  It was my first encounter with Rand's writing, and I would recommend it to everyone.

I always distantly admired her as an impassioned thinker, a fierce debater, and a self-made immigrant. Years ago my Mom told me that Ayn Rand was one of the reasons she left India for the United States, which only made me fonder of her.

When I got to college I learned that Ayn Rand is, in America, a political writer, and one who has been squarely claimed by the Republican party (never mind whether they align with her views or not).

I'm not about to defend and/or excoriate her philosophy (particularly her ethical or political philosophy, in which she seems to take her ideas to illogical and extreme conclusions) because I haven't read enough of her writing, but I suspect that some of the disdain heaped on Rand's writing comes from people who either deliberately misunderstand her work, or who are looking for a talking point.  Also, people often judge Ayn by her adherents, and being admired by a confused oatmeal-y non-entity like Paul Ryan can't be good for anyone.

For what it's worth, the generations of spoiled rich boys on Ivy League campuses who have adopted Rand as their mascot (although they would never have, say, dated her) are people for whom I suspect Ayn - who idolized the unique and individual mind as much as she did individual behavior - would not have had much admiration.

"The Romantic Manifesto" isn't a fully-defined aesthetic philosophy, but it makes for a fascinating read on the role and purpose of art in life.

Quotes:

Art is the indispensable medium for the communication of a moral ideal (10).
A sense of life...sets the nature of a man's emotional responses and the essence of his character. (14).
A man whose mind and emotions are in harmony, whose sense of life matches his conscious convictions [describing the rational man]. (19)
When love is a conscious integration of reason and emotion, of mind and values, then - and only then - it is the greatest reward of man's life. (22)

Eventually, Ayn realizes that no ideal man exists and she'll have to invent one entirely, from her imagination, much like Pygmalion invented his ideal lover (in Ovid, of course, Pygmalion comes off as the worst kind of misogynist, but that's not really relevant).  Ayn suggests that the purpose of art should be to create and celebrate the ideal.

The concept I liked most was that of a "sense of life" - our normative outlook on existence, on what is worth striving for and on how life should be lived.  She suggests that the profound and almost spiritual sense of identification that a viewer feels with certain artwork - artwork which might seem on the surface to be no different from its peers - arises when the viewer and the artist share a similar sense of life.  (I wonder to what extent this notion - so irrevocably true in art - applies to real life.  In my experience, unfortunately, it's a mixed bag)  Also, and perhaps controversially, I agree with Ayn that there is a right way to live, and that right way includes an almost-obsessive dedication to principles that might always remain slightly out of reach.  I agree with her that to compromise our ideals is to become tragic.

Of all these essays, "Art and Moral Treason" is the one that spoke to me most powerfully.  It's an essay that links together art and life, and lives up to the title "manifesto." If I could, I would nail it to a church door (or, in our more modern age, share it on Facebook?).

"Art and Moral Treason" hooked me from the get go.  It opens with the story of a spiritually bankrupt (but otherwise successful) man whom Ayn meets when he's 26.  She describes him as being "paralyzed by so extreme a state of indecision that any sort of choice filled him with anxiety - even the question of moving out of an inconvenient apartment."

Because this is an Ayn Rand essay (and not life) there is eventual redemption at the end of Mr. X's sad rainbow.  He manages to beat his purposelessness, and how!  The description of Mr. X's recovery is hopeful, passionate, unmistakable.  She says,  "Ultimately, what saved Mr. X was his commitment to reason; he held reason as an absolute, even if he did not know its full meaning and application; an absolute that survived through the hardest periods he had to endure in his struggle to regain his psychological health-to remark and release the soul he had spent his life negating... Today - after quitting his job and taking many calculated risks - he is a brilliant success, in a career he loves, and on his way up to an ever-increasing range of achievement."

Even though this was an essay, I followed Mr. X's narrative arc with bated breath.  Sadly, I'm pretty sure that he doesn't exist.  I have met a few Mr. X's.  Generally, in my experience, most don't recover - many never even realize that they're sick.  There are people who live their whole lives apologizing for and degrading their own ideals.

In "Basic Principles of Literature," Ayn presents a spirited deconstruction and defense of the ideological novel.  She understands how successful novels work, and she offers what almost amounts to a class in constructing characters and sourcing themes.  For those who write, this essay is invaluable.

If there's one thing about Ayn's essays that stands out, it is her unwavering conviction to this idea that we can overcome ourselves, but only if we struggle.  (I remember a famous line from that apex of romantic tearjerkers, The Way We Were, in which Barbra Streisand says to Robert Redford, "people are their principles."  She's the striving heroine and he's the golden boy next door, and needless to say their romance has an expiration date stamped all over it precisely because - although he enjoys paying lip service to her energy and ideals - deep down he kind of likes the world the way it is.)

I emailed my mother with some of my favorite Rand quotes, to see what she would think.  She's read most of Ayn's work but not this collection, and I suspect (based on some of the vitriol that I see coming Ayn's way) that Ayn's opinions on art may be better than her opinions on other subjects.

My mother wrote:

"Trouble is:  the moment you tell someone you like Ayn Rand, they ‘peg’ you to something, and from there on, it's aloofness and respect and sometimes anger, but never warmth or tenderness. I guess people find her cold because she doesn’t agree with many emotions we have come to think of as warm and human  (not agreeing, merely stating) – generosity, forgiveness, charity, compassion.  They forget she also means passion, fairness, cherishment, faithfulness.  It's almost as if love has to be unearned to be called love in our society."

And this gets to the heart of the debate over Ayn Rand.  I've had plenty of well-read friends tell me that they find her "cold" or "uncaring" - a description that I cannot reconcile with the impassioned rhetoric of these essays.  People's passions can be accessed through different channels, but that doesn't mean that they are lacking.  Intensity and drive are hardly cold or unfeeling conditions, although much of the world may view them that way.  (In one of these essays, Ayn defends our emotional reaction to art, suggesting that this reaction is an important guiding force in our moral development.)

"The Romantic Manifesto" is less a philosophy of art than it is a manifesto on life itself.  Art, after all, was probably what Ayn held dearest to her heart - she was a writer who expressed her ideologies in fiction, and whose ideals were (from a young age) almost certainly informed by the written word.  She suggests that there is little difference between what inspires a man in art and what inspires him in life - but most of us are afraid to admit it.

Sadly, many think Ayn isn't a great fiction writer - and that seems to be a fair critique.  There's a short story at the end of "The Romantic Manifesto" in which the hero - a 'noncommercial' writer - struggles to reconcile his vision of the ideal novel with the types of novels that sell.  Interestingly, the conflict that drives this short story directly contradicts one of Rand's earlier essays,  in which she derides society (convincingly) for looking down on commercially successful art.  The entire short story is a stream-of-consciousness semi-rant, and by the end I remain unconvinced that it has any compelling central thesis.  If her novels are anything like this short story, I would dislike them too.  The main character seems utterly whiny, untalented and self-righteous, and not exactly a standard-bearer for idealism in art or in life.

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In other news, I reviewed L. Annette Binder's "Rise" for the Iowa Review. Read and enjoy!