Out of my respect for heroes like Benjamin Franklin I can only hope that the people of the United States will, one day, come up to refute the claim of Rand but sale statistics of her works point in the other direction. Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights (which I consider to be a contradiction in terms) gives us the following update:
Washington, D.C., March 18, 2009--Earlier this year Ayn Rand's prophetic novel Atlas Shrugged was selling at triple the rate it sold at in the beginning of 2008. Now the novel is soaring to even greater heights, and its trade paperback edition is currently in first place in the Classics category on Amazon.com's best-seller list for sales in the United States. The 50th anniversary mass-market paperback edition of Atlas Shrugged ranks as #2 and the trade paperback Centennial edition ranks as #3. For several weeks Atlas Shrugged has been holding steady in the top 10 best-sellers in the broader United States Literature and Fiction category, and as of the writing of this release, different editions of the novel stand at #3, #5 and #6 in Amazon's ranking. (Read Press Release at ARC website)That a philosopher in our times should advocate rape as the "moral" prerogative of the male homo sapien is shocking enough. Her ranking as No.1-3 bestseller in the country whose so-called president is called the most powerful "man" on earth is simply disturbing, if an outsider may say so.
Since 09/11, there is supposed to have been a general increase in the popularity of Ayn Rand, who not only preached rape but also maintained that it was "immoral" for US armies to make efforts for sparing civilian lives when they invaded a country.
Can there be a connection between this ideology and the actions of the US authorities during the so-called War Against Terror? Collecting empirical "proof" of such a connection might require decades but simple comparison of Rand's ideology with some of the well-established allegations against the US administration and armies suggests a likelihood. Pity 'tis, 'tis true, true 'tis, 'tis pity.
Moral of the story: everything coming from the West is not necessarily progressive or liberal. For the sake of common human ideals, we need to put an end to stereotyping.
"Ethics" of the story: freedom of expression is an inalienable right of modern societies but does it also cover agressive marketing of books promoting rape and murder?
2 comments:
Ayn Rand as a philosopher taught that the initiation of physical force was wrong in general and that rape was disgusting in particular. As a novelist, she wrote a violent sex scene between a woman who is afraid to want any man and a man who understood her psychology and took her by force. The two characters engage in what might be considered a consensual rape- Dominique, the woman in question, goes through every motion of struggle except any that could actually be effective. She doesn't scream or tell him to go, even though there are servants in the house that could easily stop Roark. What a novelist does in literature is different from what a philosopher espouses, and the tendency to confuse the two creates misinterpretations like yours. You should read what Rand herself wrote about the scene before you spread misinterpretations. You are a sloppy reader if you missed the details of the scene in question.
Anonymous, thanks for posting a thought-provoking comment. Ayn Rand did not write "a" violent scene of that sort but "several". I hope you would also like to consider her other writings, including but not limited to, THE NIGHT OF JANURAY 16TH. I am mentioning that one in particular due to the way its significance is described in the preface written by the author. (By the way, would you mind telling us what is a "consensual rape"?).
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