Every now and then, I read something that seems to so perfectly encapsulate many of the issues of the moment that it would be wrong to limit it to one of our threads. It just ties several things together beautifully and neatly. Plus, it's well written and engaging.

I love the fact that 50 years ago my grandmother said of Ayn Rand, "She's completely wrong. She doesn't understand what motivates people at all." I wish I'd been able to know her as an adult.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/9/15 ... ve-Cultism

Sociopathy on the Right: Ayn Rand and the Triumph of Conservative Cultism
by tim wise
Tue Sep 15, 2009 at 06:06:45 AM MDT


At first it seemed little more than a bizarre rant, only slightly worse than those to which we've grown accustomed, given the source. To wit, Rush Limbaugh, who on September 11 condemned President Obama for speaking that day about community service, and encouraging young people to become involved in service projects as a way to help make America a better place. Far from seeing such a call as a positive request to take personal responsibility for improving one's nation, to Limbaugh, it was little more than the "first step toward fascism," intended to conscript the young into a volunteer army, bent on helping to carry out the President's political agenda.

Community service, Limbaugh explained, was something that should be done by convicts. Specifically, he offered: "Let prisoners do it, let prisoners pick up the trash. Let prisoners mow some highway grass. This -- this community service, folks, it's insidious. It is nothing more than a well-sounding compassionate label. But it means something entirely different. It means turning you into a robot." Yes, of course. That's not insane at all.


The anti-social nature of the diatribe was stunning. Service, according to the gospel of Limbaugh, is for suckers, for society's "losers," for people who have committed crimes. In other words, it should be viewed as punishment rather than as something to be applauded and encouraged. To do for community is a fool's errand.

Yet as bizarre as his words may seem at first blush, they actually illustrate with bold clarity the fundamental (and increasingly common) core of the conservative belief system. They speak to the sociopathy that is at the heart of the far-right worldview. It is a worldview that holds, quite simply, that doing for others is contemptible; that doing for self is the purpose of human life; that altruism and service are somehow pathologies pushed by collectivists and should be subordinated to selfishness and greed.

Sound too extreme? Well if so, consider this. Among the most interesting phenomena of the past year--and especially since the inauguration of Barack Obama--has been the explosion of interest in (and sales of) books by the late author, Ayn Rand: most prominently her classic novels, The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. Indeed, the latter had an all-time record year in 2008, and 2009 sales are on a pace to shatter even last year's numbers.

Far from a simple believer in limited government and a free market economy, Rand's philosophy--now being endorsed by tea party protesters and anti-Obama minions across the nation (indeed the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights was among the sponsors of the 9/12 march on Washington)--was predicated on one overarching notion: that a commitment to selfishness and a rejection of altruistic behavior were the height of morality. That's not to say that she merely rejected compulsory altruism via taxation, but altruism even privately chosen. To do for others, out of a charitable impulse or out of some faith-based commitment, for example, is morally and ethically suspect, for neither feelings nor faith are rational bases for human actions, according to her philosophy known as Objectivism. Unless one's assistance to another were rooted in some self-interested motivation, it was to be condemned.

It is especially fascinating to see the so-called "average, everyday folks" at the tea party rallies embracing Rand's thinking and literature. After all, Rand's view of the common man and woman--presumably the very Joe Six Packs and Hockey Moms recently enthralled by her--was decidedly grotesque. So, for instance, in her original version of her work,We the Living, Rand had her chief protagonist proclaim: "What are your masses...but mud to be ground underfoot, fuel to be burned for those who deserve it?"

Rand's disdain for the bulk of humanity was, indeed, so extreme that in the aforemetioned Atlas Shrugged--whose main character and "hero" John Galt has been referenced on numerous tea party signs--she indulges a pseudo-genocidal fantasy, in which virtually everyone except Galt and his few "perfect" producers is vanquished. This happy occurrence results from a "strike of the mind," in which Galt and his superior colleagues of industry withdraw their talents from the nation and hole up in a mountain retreat, rather than submit to things like government regulations. Those whom Galt condemns in the book, and thus, whom Rand is herself condemning, are referred to as "parasites" who are unworthy of life. Indeed, Galt's contempt for the weak of the world prompts he and his colleagues to banish the word "give" from their small utopian "gulch." Giving, after all, much like calls for community service, is for suckers.

Even though Galt feels certain that his strike may well kill the vast majority of the world's inhabitants (because they are simply too stupid to survive without he and the other "perfect producers"), he firmly believes, and thus, so does Rand, that this outcome is moral--more so, than say, taxes or charity. In keeping with his strange morality, he not only withdraws his superior talent, but also sabotages the nation's infrastructure (the roads and bridges) thereby making the transport of fuel and grain impossible, resulting in chaos, starvation and general suffering.

This is what the Rand-bots are reading, the vision of society they endorse: one comprised of better people, and decided inferiors, sub-humans even, who are worthy of death for their laziness, their sloth, their lack of industriousness. No wonder people imbued with such a truly sadistic mindset as this would oppose health care reform. To this way of thought, those without health care deserve their suffering, and that suffering should be of no concern to the rest of us.

Those who have written biographies of Rand--including former acolytes--paint a uniformly disturbing picture. Rand, according to Nathaniel Branden's My Years with Ayn Rand, Barbara Branden's The Passion of Ayn Rand, and Jeff Walker's The Ayn Rand Cult was narcissistic in the extreme, incapable of empathy, often cruel--going so far as to have an affair in full view of her husband--as well as paranoid, addicted to amphetamines, and obsessed with her belief that average people were "ugly, stupid and irrational."

Interestingly, despite her general disdain for humanity, there were people she seemed to admire greatly, such as William Edward Hickman, whose credo, "What is good for me is right," she described in her Journals as, "The best and strongest expression of a real man's psychology I have heard." But Hickman was no simple expositor of personal greed and self-interest; no mere modern day libertarian; no pedestrian practitioner of excessive self-love. No indeed. He was a sociopathic murderer. In 1927 he kidnapped a 12-year old girl from a school in Los Angeles by the name of Marian Parker, chopped off her legs, cut our her internal organs, drained all of her blood and then spread parts of her body all over the city.

Of Hickman, this sick murderer, Rand had almost nothing but positive things to say.

She indeed critiqued those who would condemn Hickman's actions for having committed "worse sins and crimes," such as those she ascribed to his jury. Among those "greater" crimes--greater than mutilating a child--she included being, "Average, everyday, rather stupid looking citizens. Shabbily dressed, dried, worn looking little men. Fat, overdressed, very average, 'dignified' housewives." Their ordinariness, in other words, placed them below Hickman, in Rand's mind. "How can they decide the fate of that boy? Or anyone's fate?" she implored in her Journals.

It was Hickman's willfulness, his disregard for others, which so seems to have resonated with Rand. It fit perfectly with her own developing philosophy, which she would articulate perfectly in her original notes for The Fountainhead, wherein she wrote, "One puts oneself above all and crushes everything in one's way to get the best for oneself. Fine!" Thus Hickman's crime, to Rand, was "a daring challenge to society," rather than the act of a seriously deranged person from whom the society should seek protection.

Indeed, Rand speculates that Hickman's real crime may have been merely that he was "too impatient, fiery and proud" to accept the slow, soul-crushing death that his life had become. She even went so far as to blame the crime on Christianity, which she described as "ludicrous tragic nonsense," capable of turning this "bad boy with a very winning grin, that...makes you like him the whole time you're in his presence" into a sadistic killer.

And so, interestingly, the right is increasingly cleaving to the words and philosophy of a woman who was not only, in all likelihood, mentally disturbed, but the functional equivalent of those who fell in love with say, Charles Manson or Ted Bundy, even after their crimes were exposed.

This is what the right is coming to. This is what they really mean when they call themselves "values voters." The values of which they speak, far from being "Christian," and far from being rooted in concern for the country, are--at least for many--firmly grounded in selfishness, applied narcissism and operationalized, organizational sociopathy. That they would seek to make a hero of Rand, and forge a movement based even in part on her thinking is all the evidence one should need that the patients are running the asylum known as the American right. Only, their kind of craziness is not nearly as sympathetic as that displayed by the typical person suffering from mental illness. Theirs is a special kind of crazy, not organic as is the case with so much mental illness, but rather, rooted in anti-social, almost cult-like propaganda. Sadly, it is a propaganda that, even with its horrific message is currently being read by more than a million high school students across the country: probably more than a few of whom are the very ones whose principals and teachers, or parents, refused to let them hear the President speak for fear he might indoctrinate them into such awful projects as community service (or, as it turned out, merely staying in school).

They want their country back, they tell us. And the country they want, so far as their reading habits would suggest, is a nation based on greed, me-firstism and an utter disregard for the well-being of the community. As for me, I will gladly stand with the opposite tradition. Do we want a culture of compassion or contempt? That is the choice. And we should proclaim our answer, compassion, boldly and without apology.

Tim Wise is the author of four books on race. His latest is, Between Barack and a Hard Place: Racism and White Denial in the Age of Obama

That is probably the biggest heaping pile of steaming shit you've ever posted Dave. Talk about taking quotes out of context...

what a joke it is that she managed to get away with calling her philosophy objectivism

PD, have you read Jeff Sharlet's book The Family?

What a joke it is that the author thinks Rush doesn't give a shit about charity when he donates and raises millions for a plethra of causes in this country.

Rand wasn't writing about charity. She was writing about forced charity. Ironic.

Have you read any of her books?

based on this response i don't even have to read it to agree with it.

however after reading it, it makes a few too many "jumps" for me.

No, but I've seen several interviews with him discussing it. I'm interested in reading it.

One thing about the piece that I wasn't exactly sure how to react to was that, obviously, only a tiny minority of the people who seem to embrace the sociopathic selfishness of Rand could possibly have read her books.

Does that mean they have not been influenced by Rand? Of course not. The people who influence them have obviously been influenced by Rand, so it's "second degree" influence, but influence nonetheless. Rush Limbaugh has clearly read and embraced Rand, and taken it to a cynical level by using his belief in his "superiority" to influence the mentally inferior to a simplified reading of Rand, taking sociopathy and dressing it as libertarianism.

There is also the obvious irony that the vast majority of the tea-partiers wouldn't understand Rand even if they had read it. And the fact that the Christians among them would probably be deeply offended by Rand if they had actually read her.

But the cynically evil influences at the top of the right-wing (Limbaugh, Cheney, Dobson), they know how to play into the various fears and prejudices of people to make them believe things that don't comport with reality, or their other beliefs even.

I think there are 12-15 Randians in NYC.

You can swap out right-wing for left-wing and it would be just as true. I don't know why you seem to insist that this selfish demagoguery is purely a right-wing phenomenon. It's not, and the average right-wing American is just as charitable as the average left-wing American. Let's just recognize the fact that both political parties cater to the lowest common denomination, and stop pretending that Democrats are an enlightened and open-minded bunch who are always in tune with reality.

should Rove & Beck be in this group?

after all, glenn beck is one of the world's greatest philosophers.

This.

Yeah, all that aside, conservatives are more philanthropic than liberals anyway. What's confounding to me is how leftists somehow conflate that people are selfish if they don't believe in big government social programs. Rush Limbaugh doesn't have any valid arguments against government run health care. He just wants poor people and the dissadvantaged to die. That's why he does all kinds of charity events, charity golf tourneys, and does an all day telethon that raises millions of dollars to healthcare causes.

The article is a disgrace.

Rush Limbaugh is kind and generous!

is there anyone you won't defend.

i might play devil's advocate in regard to attacks against some people (Van Jones, ACORN to name two recent ones), but you'll stop at nothing to make who ever it is that you agree with seem better than they are.

you're such a joke and that's why nobody takes anything you post seriously. honestly, I don't believe a single thing you say about yourself. I picture you as a 35 year old mama's boy, living at home and making up internet personalities for yourself. you probably have a liberal one too that you roll out on the Godsmack forum just to be different.

Nobody takes what I post seriously? Listen asshole. Limbaugh has donated millions of dollars to charity, and his listeners have raised millions more for various causes. I don't care if you're left or right, when you besmirch someone who is genuinely charitable, are participates in dozens of charity events throughout the year, and say that he doesn't believe in charity, I'm gonna defend that person.

This article is a total fucking disgrace. You know it. I know it. And you can't even begin to justify it. Instead of looking what Limbaugh actually does, you'll sit here and gobble up a few quotes taken out of context. Forced volunteerism and hijacking 9/11 has nothing to do with how charitable someone is.

i'm an asshole now?



rush is a clown, an entertainer, and nothing more. don't feed his ego or your own by thinking otherwise.

Limbaugh is a disgusting human being, and his listeners are savages.

ACTUALLY, I believe the point of this is that not everyone HAS millions of dollars of tax credits at their disposal to donate to charity from their fat butts in their fancy houses. What Obama represents is letting people know that EVERYONE can help out. We're one community, and we can all help, even if we don't have actual dollars to 'throw around' and look good. Donate old clothes. Get out there, talk to some old people. Teach some kids. Clean up a park.
What Rush is saying is basically getting out and involved in your community on a volunteer basis is 'beneath' him, and is the work of criminals and degenerates.