Ayn Rand

[mmarotta]

I first read Anthem in the 10th grade in 1966.  After reading The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, I took The Basic Principles of Objectivism course in the Fall and Winter 1966-1967.  Over the years, as I have developed my own understandings, I still find Ayn Rand easily over half right (mostly on mostly subjects).   Her monologue by Francisco d'Anconia from Atlas Shrugged on the Nature of Money (here) should be understood by every numismatist.
 
 

[mmarotta]

Numismatics shares many attributes with stamp collecting, “philately.” Ayn Rand’s essay, "Why I like Stamp Collecting" appeared in the Minkus Stamp Journal Vol. VI No. 2 for 1971 (read here). For Rand, collecting was "a special way of using one's mind."
 
She said that stamp collecting has all the elements of work, "but transposed to a clearly delimited, intensely private world."
 
She rejoiced in "the enormous amount of talent displayed on stamps... one finds real little masterpieces of the art of painting. … In this respect, the stamps of Japan are consistently the best. But my personal favorites are two smaller countries whose stamps are less well known: Ryukyu Islands and Iceland. If this were a competition, I would give first prize, for beauty of design, to two stamps of Iceland that feature stylized drawings of trees.”

Rand enjoyed the postage stamps and what they represented –- words transported between minds across continents – without condemning the foreign trade or human rights policies of the nations that issued them. So, too, are there compelling coins from the Middle Ages, and even feudal China.

"A collector is not a passive spectator, but an active, purposeful agent in a cumulative drive. He cannot stand still: an album page without fresh additions becomes a reproach, an almost irresistible call to embark on a new quest." -- Ayn Rand.

[Scottishmoney]

I read Atlas Shrugged when I was 13 or 14, rather I believe I was forced to read it.  A family member was concerned about me since I told the counselor at the Catholic high school orientation that I was a socialist - because frankly, I did not want to go to that school.  So I succeeded in being passed over for Catholic school, all the rest of my younger siblings were subjugated into that perfidious existential torture though.  Maybe it should have said something, I am the only one of the four of us that is still religious - though NOT Catholic.

Back on topic, Atlas Shrugged did make a lasting impression on me, not so much on some political theology as might have been the intent whence I read it, but rather more on the breakdown of civilisation and the exploitation of man by others and the dehumanising efforts of some.  One does ponder the deeper meanings of things that are our current monoliths, the ribbons of stone(roads) and the crumbling monuments of our civilisation which will be the only physical evidence apparent since there will be no record of the emotional tolls.

[mmarotta]

There is a funny love-hate relationship with Ayn Rand and Catholicism.  The obvious is obvious.  However, via Aristotle, there was also a strong tie to Thomism and Lord knows what else.  It is said -- I do not have all of the recent books -- that she planned a priest for Atlas Shrugged:

""Father Amadeus was Taggart's priest, to whom he confessed his sins. The priest was supposed to be a positive character honestly devoted to the good but practicing consistently the morality of mercy. ...  "For Father Amadeus [Galt represents] the source of the conflict. The uneasy realization that Galt is the end of his endeavors, the man of virtue, the perfect man - and that his means do not fit this end (and that he is destroying this, his ideal, for the sake of those who are evil)."-- Wikipedia

Scholasticism would be a perfect example of rationalist religion within Catholicism.  Cardinal Desire Joseph Mercier wrote perhaps the definitive modern text and it has been translated into English.  The whole of it like reading a Catholic Thomas Jefferson. 
 
On the other subject, there is no doubt that civilizations come and go;  culltures arise, blossom, and pass on.  We may be at the end of ours, but that is not certain and when we look back through the inverted telescope of history, we collapse lifetimes and generations into "the Middle Ages" or "the Fall of Rome."  Seldom is it like that.  But it can be helpful to consider the view from the far future and look back on our present from that perspective.
 
That said, there is a strong "millennarian" or "apocalyptic" or "Goetterdaemmerung" element among Ayn Rand's fans who actually look forward to the end of the world.  Reason magazine editor Virginia Postrel calls them "the enemies of the future" in her book (guess what) The Future and Its Enemies.
 
I think that the problem is that Ayn Rand never got past Atlas herself.  A second book -- "Prometheus Rising" -- could have told of the arising from the ashes with a many optional conflicts, even between and among nominal "good guys" with opposing goals -- atomic engine spaceships versus submarine colonies, or whatever...  But she was over 50 when she completed the book and people even a generation ago aged a lot faster than we do today, so for her, it was I Will Follow You Into the Dark end of the road[/url].