Rand reviews

Some reviews of the new Ayn Rand bios, one of which I'm thinking of assigning next semester. If I do, these links might be useful to contextualize her present-day popularity.

First up, Andrew Leonard presents "Scary Fantasy Alert", which relays a hagiographic book review from Bloomberg news. The reporter tries to show Rand's relevance as a consequence of her ficitonal world coming true. An obvious crock. Leonard:

The idea that Ayn Rand's renewed popularity is a result of some kind of life-imitates-art recapitulation of the themes of her novels is ridiculous. What's really happening is much easier to explain. When world events conspired to destroy the myth that an unregulated free market is the best way to organize society, the true believers retreated into a shell made from their own hardened ideology. That's why Fox News has higher ratings, and Ayn Rand is selling more books -- because fantasy is more appealing than the real world, when the real world is telling you that what you believe is wrong.

And that of course is why fiction was such a better vehicle through which to create and defend this ideology: when refuted by the real world, it can persist in fantasy.

Next, Leonard relays an equally scary fact: that Newsweek hired Mark Stanford to review the two new bios. ("Hiking the Appalachian Trail With Ayn Rand")

Give Newsweek some credit. The magazine's choice of South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford to review two recent biographies of Ayn Rand is an inspired act of editorial genius. Lest we forget, before Sanford became famous for (not) hiking the Appalachian Trail, he was much beloved by the Republican base for his (ultimately failed) attempt to reject stimulus money from Washington. That is what "going Galt" is all about. His proud stance bore a clear resemblance to architect Howard Roark's decision in "The Fountainhead" to blow up his own building after dastardly bureaucrats dared alter his design. Mark Sanford -- so committed to limited government he was willing to blow up South Carolina.

Add in to the mix the psychological truth that few Americans are better suited to laud Ayn Rand's cult of the individual than a man who betrayed his responsibilities to an entire state out of an undeniable passion to tango in Argentina, and you've got a clear winner. And since, as my colleague Alex Koppelman observes, no one in South Carolina is paying any attention to what Sanford says or does anymore, the governor obviously had plenty of time to read the two hefty biographies.