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Originally Posted by spence
Read it, it's actually pretty interesting.
-spence
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That Ryan's views on Ayn Rand might put him at odds with the christian right or the Catholic Church are moot since both are at odds with both parties, but probably more so with the progressive anti-religious views of the Dems.
Weiss allows college students to go through a "literary infatuation" with Rand and then to repudiate her later, but Ryan must not be allowed this path, and must always forever be a true and absolute Randian.
Weiss mentions that her books celebrated greed and selfishness and saw altruism as "evil," but doesn't go into her arguments of why so, just drops those loaded words into his essay to help paint her as a brutish, uncaring, anti-social being. Also mentions that she was a militant atheist who favored abortion, which, not being an atheist who favors abortion actually is a prime reason to understand that Ryan is not a pure Randian.
Ryan says, according to the article, that he was more deeply influenced by his Catholic faith and by Thomas Aquinas (than, it follows,more than by Ayn Rand.) But, somehow, we must not accept that as true, but, rather, as true the implication that he is a true Randian because of a speech, whose words in that speech must be the total truth of his views that negate anything else he might say. In that speech he says he was taught quite a bit about who he is and what his value systems are and what his beliefs are. But "quite a bit" is different than "totally." But we are to assume, by the author's implication, that the true and total Randian view is what his value systems are, therefore they cannot be his Catholic faith or Thomas Aquinas.
Further, Ryan, according to the article, says that if there were one person who he might credit for going into politcs, it would be Rand and her views (in stark terms as the Weiss emphasizes) on the struggle between the individual and the collective.
The thing about Howard Roark, hero of "The fountainhead" is he was an ideal, a totally virtuous individual, not a real flawed human being full of various sometimes conflicting ideas. Being an ideal, it is likely that such men do not, or rarely exist. He was a literary emblem. And Weiss points out, gratuitously, that the book was denounced as amoral. Which is strange since it was about an ultimate morality, and was contradicted as a Randian position by Weiss's comment on her next book, "Atlas Shrugged," being a statement that laissez fair capitalism is the only
moral social system.
The fact that, as Weiss concedes, "Ryan is no atheist, but atheism was at the core of [Rand's] philosophy," certainly indicates that Ryan does not fully accept Rand's philosophy. He certainly doesn't act like a true Randian hero--he is fighting for his views through government, not as an individual ousider. Just as the only ideal Christian was Jesus Christ, the only ideal objectivist might be Ayn Rand. The other "Christians"--see puritans, liberation theologists, Catholics and various protestants and sects, can, apparently depart from the ideal Christian, so saying that Ryan cannot be an objectivist and a Christian at the same time is an extreme and absolutist view. One that a "centrist" might object to. We as centrists, relativists, rationalists, eclectivists, modernists, pholosopers, realists, individualists (more so than collectivists), and especially politicians (even statesmen), can take what is good and useful from philosphies, even those like Rand's, which might be impossible or too ideal, yet have value that take us in the direction, the vector, of our society's ideals.
The U.S. Constitution (you know I had to get that in here) which Rand admired (except for the commerce clause not being more clearly articulated) points the vector toward individual freedom. Socialism's, Marxism's, Communism's, and progressivism's vector points us toward the collective over the individual.
Which vector do you prefer?