Captive-Bonding: the Philosophy of Ayn Rand

My cell phone rang at 2:31 am. It was a dear friend who had just finished reading my post about Ayn Rand (sent only a few minutes earlier). He couldn’t wait till morning to ask, “In which book did Ayn Rand preach rape?”

By 10:00 am, I had received more feedback than I have about any other post so far. I am obliged to clarify a few points.

Ayn Rand (1905-1982) is tricky business. She attracts many who detest themes of “guilt, fear and pity” which dominate the “high literature”, for instance:

• A young girl is raped by her employer (a swindler) on the first day of the job. She becomes a devoted mistress…
• A young girl gets attracted to a man who cannot help thinking sexually about every female who walks on two feet. On their third meeting she decides to elope with him while he is being chased by authorities…
• A young couple runs away from oppression to find shelter in a wasteland, where the girl kneels before him to be taken…
• A young heiress gets raped by an angry worker. She starts sleeping with him and continues even after getting married in her own class…
• A young girl is raped by her trusted friend and gets fascinated by him. Afterwards, she is taken by a married man and starts an affair with him. When she sets out to kill someone who has caused damage to her family business she gets caught by him and falls in love with him…

We would welcome an author to rescue us from such themes and offer healthy alternatives. That is what Rand promises to do but, ironically, the five themes described here are themes of her five works of fiction. We therefore need to ascertain whether she actually delivers what she promises or whether she is a confidence artist selling us the same stuff which she denounces vehemently, and getting away with it by putting big words into big mouths of burglars, murderers, rapists and society girls in order to make them sound heroic.

The works cited here are, respectively:

• Night of January 16th, Rand’s first significant stage play
• We the Living, Rand’s first novel which she claimed to be partially autobiographical
• Anthem, a novelette
• Fountainhead, her most commercially successful novel in her lifetime
• Atlas Shrugged, her last novel which is claimed to be philosophical and “prophetic” and is setting new records in popularity since 09/11

In most cases, the “initiations” of Rand heroines are incidents of rape – brutal and disgusting – but camouflaged with philosophical bombasts by culprits whom the author wishes to present as heroes. Here is the incident from Night of January 16th narrated by the victim herself:

“He said he’d give me a thousand kroner if I would go into the inner office and take my skirt off. I said I wouldn’t. He said if I didn’t, he’d take me. I said, try it. He did… After a while, I picked up my clothes; but I didn’t go. I stayed. I kept the job.”

Now consider this segment from the famous detailed rape of Dominique by Howard Roark in Fountainhead:

It was an act that could be performed in tenderness, as a seal of love, or in contempt, as a symbol of humiliation and conquest. It could be the act of a lover or the act of a soldier violating an enemy woman. He did it as an act of scorn. Not as love, but as defilement. And this made her lie still and submit.

Explanations offered by Rand make it worse. It has been said that she justified one of these incidents as “rape by engraved invitation.” Likewise, a comment on my blog entry defended the incident as “what might be considered a consensual rape”. Needless to say, such arguments have no room in a modern discussion on the subject but date back to ancient laws certain cultures where rape could be blamed on “provocative behavior” of the victim. “Rape by engraved invitation” and “consensual rape” are not denials – they do not suggest that depicting rape wasn’t the authors’ intention. They are justifications.

These are not “role plays” occurring within otherwise healthy relationships. The men in both cases are strangers. If these are not incidents of rape then how do we define sexual violence? If a victim begins to like the rapist, this doesn’t mean that the rapist is a hero. It means that the victim needs to see a shrink.

Nor are these some minor incidents embedded in a work of fiction focused elsewhere. We are talking about a persistent theme recurring in significant manner in several works. Increase in Rand’s popularity in America is alarming because what lies beneath the surface of her work might be quite different from something which could pass as mere perversion (allegations of perversions are commonplaces of modern culture, since what is considered perverse in one era may become acceptable in another). In this case, however, we are dealing with a society witnessing “dramatic increase in popularity” of works which might be promoting rape.

The followers of Ayn Rand are proudly claiming that her popularity inside the US has dramatically increased since 09/11. Is it a mere coincidence that the popularity of the US itself in the world outside has dropped in direct proportion? Today, the connotations globally attached with the words “the United States of America” are not those of democracy, human rights and liberty (and we all know what the new connotations are). Is it even possible that there may be no connection between the acts of a people and their thoughts? Nobody can be in a better position to answer that than the US itself.

Thinker who preached rape

The most notable 20th Century thinker who maintained that raping a woman was the "moral" prerogative of a strong male was - well, not someone from a third-world country but - Ayn Rand, who claimed to represent the true ideology of the founding fathers of the United States (!).

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?

Aafia's ex-husband

Words from the ex-husband of Dr. Aafia Siddiqui started pouring into the media some time back (and a little before the recent hearing). We can't be the best judges on the truth behind the grievances of Aafia's husband and the issue of the legal custody of their child(ren), but let's not get distracted from the central moral issue involved: the supremacy of law.

Aafia's guilt or otherwise ought to be determined on the basis of charges against her in a court of law and on no other grounds, and the same goes for any issues between her, her family and her ex-husband.

Unfortunately Aafia's ex-husband seems to be following the bad precedent set by American authorities, i.e. indulging in media trial instead of bringing up issues before a proper court of justice. He is in a good position to correct this bad precedent by taking his grievances to a court of law, and I'm sure that doing that will earn him a great deal of respect which, I hope, he deserves very much.

Custody of children is a legal matter and if this has been denied to Aafia's ex-husband in a wrongful manner then that should be set right by a competent court. Someone needs to restore the prestige of courts as arbiters independent of the media. Aafia's ex-husband is in a good position to take that initiative too.

Media: too arrogant for its own good?

So, Chief Justice of Pakistan, Iftikhar Chaudhry gets reinstated and the mainstream Western media, as usual, distorts a crucial section of the story. Consider this recap in a release from the Associated Press (AP) highlighted on the main page of Yahoo!:

“Former President Pervez Musharraf fired Chaudhry, 60, in 2007 after he took up cases challenging the leader's rule, sparking a wave of protests that helped force Musharraf from power in 2008.”

The leading press agency fails to inform the Western audience that the cases which CJ Chaudhry was taking up (and which led to his dismissal by Musharraf) were related to the “missing persons” illegally handed over to American authorities (Read AP Story).

If, in the near future, the Pakistani masses interpret the triumph of the Lawyers’ Movement as also a victory against the unlawful interference of foreign powers in their country, then the AP has successfully failed to prepare its Western audience for understanding the connection. Whether it is sheer arrogance or plain mediocrity of the Western media, we cannot say.