Where is the liberal Ayn Rand? What's your answer?
AYN RAND AT A TEAPARTY PROTEST: One Tea Party protester takes a photo of another protester, obscuring his face with pixels, displaying a slogan that fans of Ayn Rand recognize as rejecting the American status quo.
Dr. Wayne Baker welcomes back popular guest columnist Terry Gallagher.
Mitt Romney’s selection of Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan as his running mate has drawn attention to, of all things, Ryan’s literary tastes. In a New Yorker profile earlier this month, Ryan describes how, when he was a high-school student searching for some sense of meaning following his father’s premature death, the novels of Ayn Rand had a profound impact on him.
“The reason I got involved in public service, by and large, if I had to credit one thinker, one person, it would be Ayn Rand,” he said in a 2005 speech.
Rand’s books, and her philosophy called Objectivism, have influenced generations of American conservatives and libertarians, and are required reading for Ryan’s staff and interns.
But Rand’s books, especially The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged (which features the mysterious rebel John Galt from the book’s first sentence), are just part of the canon for conservatives. Other writers have had a similar impact and lasting influence among Republicans and their supporters, including economists Friedrich Hayek, Ludwig von Mises, and Milton Friedman. Barry Goldwater’s "Conscience of a Conservative," first published in 1960, is available in a Kindle edition.
So what’s a liberal to do? Yale history Prof. Beverly Gage asked “Why isn’t there a liberal Ayn Rand?” in a recent commentary on Slate. “What conservatives have developed is what the left used to describe as a ‘movement culture’: a shared set of ideas and texts that bind activists together in common cause,” Gage wrote.
How do you respond to Gage's challenge?
What's a liberal to read?
What's on your list?
Originally published on OurValues.org.
Comments
John Hritz
Mon, Aug 20, 2012 : 7:26 p.m.
The question is an interesting one, but the answers from Slate and NPR have been weak. The problem with finding a liberal version of Rand is multifold and also pointless. Politically Rand mostly was left libertarian. She was for small government, individual freedom, an atheist and pro-choice. Based on that, you'd need to look at political theorists who are more authoritarian and conservative which puts you in the middle of most of our political candidates. Ralph Nader, Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich tend to be less authoritarian than the rest of the pack. Margaret Hoover's book on American Individualism lays out an argument for the GOP to moderate on social issues, but Romney/Ryan haven't picked up on the rhetoric. http://www.amazon.com/American-Individualism-Generation-Conservatives-Republican/dp/0307718158
kmgeb2000
Mon, Aug 20, 2012 : 5:25 p.m.
How about the new testiment (and this is from an potential atheist, agnostic, deist - as yet to be determined)? Seems to me Jesus didn't have a job, hung out with a prostitute, and suggested love and compasion for all. Sounds to like a bunch of liberal leanings if you ask me, and I think you did. Hoping ofr health care for all citizens is just socialism, ya right.
Robert Northrup
Mon, Aug 20, 2012 : 4:15 p.m.
Why isn't there a verbose sci-fi author inspiring a movement of liberals to be selfish egotists? That's a mystery. If we're just talking about a person inspiring liberals, without being similar to Rand in other ways, I'd say Noam Chomsky or Howard Zinn. You can sometimes see them quoted on protest signs, or see their books recommended by liberals.