Oh Ayn.

“Who gon’ check me boo.” — I am!

In my recent post about Ben Carson a dear friend of mine took umbrage with the irreverent manner in which I reference Atlas Shrugged and hence his bae of baes Ayn Rand.

Pretty sure he’s presently preparing a response.

Me: Just like an Ayn Rand STAN to be all upset for nothing.
Him: Lmaaoooooo. I’m so peeved by this ridiculous misconception and egregious application.
Me: What misconception mah ninja?

One thing in life you can never do is come for Bernie Sanders, Ron Paul, Beyonce, nor Ayn Rand Supporters Anonymous.

I liked Atlas Shrugged… sort of.

Things I Liked

  • Great characters, beautiful characters.
  • Dagny was a boss ass bish…bish…bish…
  • Dagny captured the undivided love and admiration of three fione HNICs… The Intellectual. The Doer. The Idealist. Swoons.
  • Some very intense sex scenes. You nasty Ayn!
  • The many themes and sentiments similar to the following:
“I started my life with a single absolute: that the world was mine to shape in the image of my highest values and never to be given up to a lesser standard, no matter how long or hard the struggle.”

Things I Disliked

The logorrheic language. Guh. At this point I’m convinced you just enjoy the sound of your own voice in your own head.

This could have been summed up into, “Being a dumb ho is lazy yo.

Everything else.

Lemme ‘splain.

Atlas Shrugged is an appeal to objectivism and rational egoism.

Source: www.aynrand.org [grain of salt]

That sounds fantastic!

But in reality and how it’s practiced, Objectivism plays out more like a circle-jerk.

Prosper by treating others as individuals, trading value for value.

At its core, Objectivism has little overlap with altruism… unless the altruistic act brings you joy and thus value.

Ugh. How utterly unromantic.

But that’s not my real beef.

I fancy Ayn Rand views herself as someone who started from the bottom now she here?

Yes. She’s Jewish. And Russian. And a woman. And an immigrant.

However in Russia, her family was upper-middle class and supremely well-connected to say the least.

Not to mention her greatest asset, which she owes to nothing but cosmic happenstance — the mind she was born with and the family she was born into.

Rand is a natural intellectual!

I cannot stress that enough.

I’m sure if she had taken an IQ test she would have been classified as “ very gifted.” Sitting right there in the advanced placement kindergarten class next to Joshua, Savannah, and Srikanth.

Couple that with a support system of accomplished family and friends and prestigious schooling… you end up with a woman who apparently “pulled herself from her own bootstraps” or whatever.

She was the 1920s equivalent of a homegirl from the Main Line hightailing it to Paris’ Left Bank to “try out” la vie bohème.

And therein lies my beef.

Well part of it.

This belief that she’s self-made; not a product of her environment and genetics.

I find it fascinating and a delusion I’ve noticed of many a privileged conservative.

Ultimately however, my beef is with Ayn Rand’s limited perspective.

She is seemingly unable to view the world through her antithesis without utterly demeaning their consciousness.

She harbors a visceral disgust with and disdain for those who do not think like her.

I think she lacks empathy.

I think she lacks empathy and compassion for those not born in her image.

And that’s… well that’s some shit I don’t like.

Prove me wrong ya’ll.

I’m willing to be proved wrong.