To the Editor:

Algis Valiunas criticizes Ayn Rand’s “unlimited faith in reason,” complaining that “there are no mysteries in her world” [“Who Needs Ayn Rand?,” September]. She certainly did hold reason as an absolute—except, of course, that one cannot do so on “faith,” since the very concept of faith names a belief held in contrast to reason. Accordingly, she repudiated all forms of mysticism—from the subjectivism of the wanton emotionalist to the dogmatism of the fervent religionist. Mr. Valiunas suggests that Rand’s philosophy—Objectivism—is impractical, that it is born of “girlish daydreams” and ends in “utopian fantasy.” But which approach is actually disconnected from reality: one based strictly on reason and the world we perceive, or one based on blind faith and feelings?

To endorse reason is to endorse principles—unequivocal, unbending standards. Though Mr. Valiunas criticizes Rand’s refusal to accept any watering down of what he concedes are her “fine ideas,” Rand’s opposition to compromise was . . . uncompromising. She held that man survives by using reason—not by using reason sometimes and unreason at other times.

In championing rational self-interest in ethics and laissez-faire capitalism in politics, Rand held that your life belongs entirely to you—not partly to your neighbor or partly to the state. Any attempt to compromise with one’s moral opposite, she argued—any attempt to find some “middle ground” between reason and mysticism, between egoism and altruism, between capitalism and statism—can achieve only the advancement of evil.

Since Mr. Valiunas believes that one is not responsible for one’s own moral character, he insists that human interactions should be governed not by justice but by compassion—that is, the acknowledgment and forgiveness of moral failings. Thus, he derogates Rand for making sweeping judgments of certain people as “looting lice” or “subhuman creatures.” But how would he characterize such abject repudiators of reason as the Hurricane Katrina looters, or the creatures in Iraq who behead Americans to the gleeful chants of “Allahu akhbar,” or, even worse, the subhuman intellectuals who try to justify such irrationality? The one point on which Mr. Valiunas is completely correct is that Rand would indeed regard compassion for them as “a triumph of sloppy feeling over lucid reason.”

Rand’s philosophy of Objectivism has had a vast cultural influence. On the centenary of her birth, she deserves to be celebrated by those who understand that the values on which man’s life depend—science, technology, production, progress, capitalism—require, at their root, an unwavering dedication to reason.

Peter Schwartz

Ayn Rand Institute

Irvine, California

To the Editor:

Algis Valiunas’s scornful article on Ayn Rand was artfully crafted. It gives many details (not all of them correct) about Rand’s life and achievements and carefully avoids any discussion of the content of her philosophy.

Let us consider the factual errors first. Ayn Rand’s name was not taken from her typewriter. Her husband Frank O’Connor was never an alcoholic, and though he was not an intellectual genius, he was a man of impeccable character. Rand did not reject her lover Nathaniel Branden out of jealousy, but because he spent many years deceiving her. She was not opposed to all charity.

Now let us consider what Mr. Valiunas fails to discuss: Rand’s stunning achievements in philosophy. (See L. Peikoff’s Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand.) She was the first philosopher: to identify and validate the axioms of philosophy; to validate free will and identify its actual nature; to present an objective theory of concept formation, a problem that had plagued philosophers for over two millennia; to tie fully logic to reality; to present an objective theory of ethics based on life as the ultimate standard; to validate (rational) egoism and show the anti-life nature of altruism; to prove that rationality was the highest virtue; to give the concept of individual rights an objective foundation; and to provide a moral defense for capitalism. She also developed a totally original theory of aesthetics, including an objective definition of art.

As for Mr. Valiunas’s claim that Rand is no longer a “commanding figure,” the exact opposite is true. The sales of her books have increased dramatically in recent years. There are now twenty Objectivists teaching at universities (up from only two some fifteen years ago), and the demand for them has outstripped the current supply. There are nine Objectivist programs at universities (up from zero several years ago), and more are in the wings. New books presenting Rand’s ideas are constantly being published. Her name has been mentioned favorably in Congress. A number of world leaders have read and admired her books. In short, she is commanding more respect than ever.

Edwin A. Locke

Westlake Village, California

To the Editor:

Like too many critics, Algis Valiunas relies on tendentious accounts of Ayn Rand’s personal life, misstates events in her novels and public life, and ignores much of the evidence that demonstrates Rand’s importance, namely, her considerable nonfiction writing in such works as The Virtue of Selfishness, Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, Philosophy: Who Needs It, and Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology. Whether or not one agrees with Rand’s ideas, anyone familiar with the history of Western philosophy and with her own philosophy of Objectivism should recognize her as a major figure. But from Mr. Valiunas’s article one does not learn any of the arguments she advanced to support her philosophical system. He describes her arguments as “half-truth and alluring lunacy” without ever presenting them.

Ayn Rand was a radical thinker, who originated a new philosophical system that defends the absolutism of reason. Because she focused on the essential issues in philosophy and offered alternatives to millennium-old views and assumptions in metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, and politics, her thought is of interest even to those it does not convince. Any serious student of fundamental ideas should take note of her arguments.

Onkar Ghate

Ayn Rand Institute

Irvine, California

To the Editor:

Algis Valiunas expresses contempt for the reading public by smugly suggesting that the reason Ayn Rand’s works continue to sell is merely that “there are certain effects she pulls off as well as anyone.” He does not allow that almost 50 years after the publication of Atlas Shrugged, over 100,000 readers per year might still find her ideas compelling.

More than anything else, Ayn Rand was an effective proselytizer on behalf of philosophy in general. She showed how our explicit ideas and implicit assumptions about arcane questions translate into economic and political policies. That her own philosophy may have been incorrect in many places is unimportant; Rand could dramatize the relation of philosophy to practical life in a way that young people first discovering ideas would probably never see from reading F.A. Hayek or Karl Popper.

Peter Corey

New York City

To the Editor:

Algis Valiunas’s essay on Ayn Rand is a smear job that says more about the state of American intellectuals today—particularly those of the Right—than it does about Rand or her philosophy of Objectivism.

During my years teaching Atlas Shrugged at a college in Ohio, I witnessed professors become unbuttoned psychologically when they learned that students were reading Rand’s work. That virtually all liberals fear the influence of Rand’s ideas is not surprising; Atlas Shrugged is arguably the most powerful critique of socialism ever written. But I saw even conservative professors intimidate and threaten students to prevent them from discussing her ideas. There is something in her philosophy that they fear. What is it? A few dislike Rand because she chose Athens over Jerusalem, reason over revelation. But there is something else.

Ayn Rand believed that America was the most moral society in world history. She also felt that the principles on which our country was founded were never properly defended philosophically from assaults by the likes of Kant, Hegel, Marx, and Nietzsche. She therefore set out to defend reason, rational egoism, individual rights, constitutionalism, and capitalism as objectively true.

Unlike conservatives, Rand did not rely on faith (including “faith” in reason), tradition, or folksy speeches to defend America. Perhaps conservatives fear her because they do not think America is defensible philosophically.

C. Bradley Thompson

Clemson University

Clemson, South Carolina

To the Editor:

Algis Valiunas admits to relying on The Passion of Ayn Rand, “an admiring but clear-eyed biography by her disciple, Barbara Branden.” Yet Branden and her ex-husband Nathaniel were thoroughly excoriated and ditched by Ayn Rand in 1968 after she learned of their deceptions and moral turpitude. To present Branden as an impartial, objective biographer is outrageous. After decades of Rand-bashing by the likes of Mr. Valiunas, James Valliant’s The Passion of Ayn Rand’s Critics has laid bare the Brandens’ profoundly unjust characterization. Critics are now faced with the daunting task of having to read Rand’s work firsthand.

Edwin R. Thompson

New York City

To the Editor:

Judging by his article “Who Needs Ayn Rand?,” Algis Valiunas cannot get simple facts right and is a stranger to basic tools of research. Let me enumerate just a few of his factual errors. He claims that “in his youth” Alan Greenspan wrote for one of Ayn Rand’s Objectivist publications. But Greenspan, born in 1926, was thirty-six when his first essay for Rand appeared. Youth indeed! Mr. Valiunas claims that Rand’s novel We the Living was published in 1933; it actually appeared in 1936. He claims that “her educational foundation, the Ayn Rand Institute, helped spread the word,” but the Institute was created only after her death in 1982.

Mr. Valiunas’s claim that Ellsworth Toohey, the villain in The Fountainhead, hated the hero, Howard Roark, because of his “perfectionism,” is an indication that Mr. Valiunas has never actually read the novel, as is his absurd claim that Gail Wynand was “regenerated” at the end of it. One need only take a look at the closing pages of chapter 19 to read about Wynand’s total demoralization and despair. Discussing Atlas Shrugged, Mr. Valiunas refers to the “New Deal,” to “virtual Stalinism,” and to “Marxist imbeciles,” terms that have no relevance at all to the novel, which he apparently has not read, either.

But Mr. Valiunas’s greatest lapse of scholarship is his preposterous claim that Ayn Rand’s “centenary has gone largely unmarked.” In fact, more than 100 articles and a new biography have marked it, as anyone could easily discover by way of the Internet.

Robert Hessen

Hoover Institution

Stanford, California

Algis Valiunas writes:

After one has cut through the Randites’ rant and pettifoggery—I will admit to having gotten wrong the publication date of Ayn Rand’s first novel—one serious question remains: the quality of her thought.

There is a crucial difference between being reasonable and having “unlimited faith in reason,” as Rand had. Socrates, that paragon of reason, famously declared that he knew what he did not know; this awareness of reason’s limitations distinguishes him from those pretending to knowledge they do not actually have. Rand is one of the pretenders: she believes—never proves—that human reason can answer every question, and that indeed her own philosophy does precisely that, once and for all. One can rave all one likes about her philosophical achievement, as her acolytes ceaselessly do, but the entire structure of her thought rests on a fundamental misconception. That misconception represents not only inadequate reasoning but the triumph of sloppy feeling over disinterested mind—the unpardonable failing in Rand’s own estimation.

In fact, Rand’s reasoning is founded on the very gobbledygook of imperious sentiment that she loathes as reason’s nemesis. She cannot demonstrate by reason the non-existence of God: rather, her pride tells her there cannot be a God, for to acknowledge that a perfect Being exists would be to admit her own inferiority, something her emotional constitution makes unthinkable. So she thought—more precisely, so she felt—at the age of fifteen, when she decided she was an atheist, and, as I noted in my article, she never really refined her basic thoughts or feelings on the matter.

The glaring flaws in Rand’s metaphysics are fatal to her ethical and political thinking as well. Human beings in her view are entirely “self-made souls”: if there is no Creator, then man must be purely his own creation. But even reasonable atheists acknowledge that man is a creature who arrives on earth through no will of his own, and whose nature, both as a human being and as an individual, is circumscribed by genetic endowment and other inscrutable strokes of fate. Most individuals are of course responsible for their actions—there are exceptions among the mentally defective—but no man is sole master of his destiny.

That every man simply makes himself what he is by virtue of right or wrong reasoning, as Rand asserts, is a half-truth at best, and one that, as I showed, plunged her into ridiculous thought and sordid behavior. But Rand has no idea what being reasonable means, and no sense of men as creatures, each graced—whether by chance or design—with his own particular gifts, lacking others he may wish he had, and subject to all the pains of his individual nature and of human nature. That is why her world has the moral clarity of horse opera, with all the heroes on her side and all the villains on the other.

As a champion of American democracy, finally, Rand is blind to the foremost democratic virtue, namely, compassion. She claims that reason scorns compassion, but that which she despises is in fact rooted in human rationality. Compassionate men of faith accept their gifts as an obligation to help others less gifted, while compassionate agnostics or atheists recognize that chance has a great deal to do with their own excellence, achievement, and prosperity, and, at best, they pity those whom fortune has not dealt with so generously.

There are of course reasonable limits to compassion: no one can be held responsible for everyone else, nearly everyone must bear some degree of responsibility for his own condition, and some individuals are so depraved by their own choices that they deserve no compassion from others. But Rand sees compassion as simply evil, an unreasonable obstacle to the pursuit of happiness by nature’s aristocrats, who owe everything to themselves and nothing to anyone else. In this sense, too, her failure as a writer and thinker is her failure as a human being, and her idea of what life should be is inimical to life itself.