Ayn Rand Against the World (w/ Jennifer Burns)
Added 2025-02-03 11:00:13 +0000 UTCAn atheist, a radical for capitalism, a caricature of a greedy libertarian, a best-selling novelist, a difficult partner and passionate lover, and the self-proclaimed greatest philosopher since Aristotle: Ayn Rand was many things, and we talk about almost all of them in this epic episode. To do so, we called upon historian Jennifer Burns, whose intellectual biography, Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right , is enormously helpful in trying to understand an idiosyncratic writer who, both then and now, fits ambiguously into the "fusionist" post-war conservative movement. Rand remains a controversial figure whose ideas permeate our culture and continue to inspire some of the most consequential (and least appealing) political figures in the United States. To understand Rand and her influence, we examine her family's experiences during and after the Russian Revolution, her journey to the U.S. and early success in Hollywood, the arduous path she trod to become a writer, Rand's involvement in anti-New Deal politics in the 1930s and 40s, her ideas, philosophy, and scandalous personal life, and much more.
Sources:
Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead (1943)
— Atlas Shrugged (1957)
— We the Living (1936)
Jennifer Burns, Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right (2009)
— Milton Friedman: The Last Conservative (2023)
Whittaker Chambers, "Big Sister Is Watching You," National Review, Dec 28, 1957
Murray Rothbard, "The Sociology of the Ayn Rand Cult," (1972)
Mary Gaitskill, Two Girls, Fat and Thin (1991)
Lisa Duggan, Mean Girl: Ayn Rand and the Culture of Greed, (2019)
— "Ayn Rand and the Cruel Heart of Neoliberalism," Dissent, May 20, 2019.
Adam Curtis, All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace, (2011)
Listen again:
"Milton Friedman and the Making of Our Times," Dec 3, 2023
Comments
Highlighting how in fact Rand's system destroys individuality rather than embracing it was a good angle I thought. While going through this I thought there are a lot of signs she had a pretty rigid belief in natural hierarchy and maybe didn't even know it.
Iroquois Pliskin
2025-02-17 17:04:48 +0000 UTCAtlas Shrugged has to be one of the worst books I have ever attempted reading - reads like a cocaine substack rant
Iroquois Pliskin
2025-02-17 16:45:40 +0000 UTCI think you guys downplay who William Hickman was and what he did. He murdered a young girl (middle schooler) and horribly mutilated her body. He also plead insanity on the basis of his strict religious upbringing. (Look up "Murder of Marion Parker") That Rand was drawn to this figure speaks volumes about her "reason" and "ethics"
John W
2025-02-14 12:23:20 +0000 UTCUtterly bizarre how many people read some Rand for high school English (I read anthem)
Derek
2025-02-12 12:02:19 +0000 UTCThe book is about Rose, her mental health struggles, why she embraced libertarianism, the hypocrisy of her choices. The family was another group the voted for FDR but then felt betrayed by his actions on farms. (It could also be possible that people were being brainwashed even then by pamphlets and astroturf.)
Ann
2025-02-11 16:24:34 +0000 UTCLittle correction. Rose's role in Little House was not as overbearing as thought once manuscripts were reviewed. A great discussion on this is the excellent book Pulitzer winning book Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder. Further, the author of this book Caroline Fraser would be an excellent guest on the podcast. She does the history of the US with a community focused lens and shows how capitalism and bootstrapping ideas harmed so many people. It also has a lot of ecological history. You can reach her thru her website contact at Penguin. https://www.carolinefraser.net
Ann
2025-02-11 16:20:25 +0000 UTCThis was a fantastic episode! Thank you for giving Rand the careful look which she deserves - not on account of her literary or philosophical merit, but on account of her continued popularity and influence in certain powerful circles. I didn't know much about her life story, and I definitely felt, in your conversation with Burns, the push-pull of attraction to an intense personality manically devoted to her obsessions, and repulsion of breathtaking egotism and inability to reflect on herself or the world. Then we got to the gross cult-of-personality stuff which I did NOT know about and repulsion won out. I'm glad you brought back Rand's Nietzschean contempt for religion at the end there, because the longer things went on the more I found myself thinking, "Yeah, Objectivism is a demonic religion." Great work!
Tom
2025-02-07 16:23:06 +0000 UTCOur hosts neglected to mention this biographical detail about Saunders’s history with Rand: https://www.newyorker.com/humor/daily-shouts/i-was-ayn-rands-lover
Zach
2025-02-06 00:17:56 +0000 UTCI read Fountain Head in high school because I wanted to apply to a scholarship setup by the Ayn Rand Institute; not really knowing anything about Ayn Rand, catching a whiff of the Libertarianism but feeling like I could right a good essay about whatever probably. That book made me depressed for like a week.
Harmony 不累
2025-02-06 00:13:24 +0000 UTCI appreciated Matt's rejoinder "or they're assholes and don't realize that's why they're being rejected." And I also recognize that from high-school and in people like Musk and Zuckerberg.
Rhianna79
2025-02-05 22:42:56 +0000 UTCI read this Guardian piece when it came out in 2022 and has stuck with me since. The writer was invited to talk to the ultra wealthy about prepping for global disaster and their concern is how to maintain control of their security forces. It's a horrifying confession of their values, and all their talk is exactly what you discuss in this ep: the tech billionaire taking the idea of needlessness to new extremes. What stuck out for me in this piece is how quickly that needlessness transforms into subjugating others. https://www.theguardian.com/news/2022/sep/04/super-rich-prepper-bunkers-apocalypse-survival-richest-rushkoff#comments
Jesse Peterson-Brandt
2025-02-05 18:34:59 +0000 UTCLittle Tangent: John Hodgman's impression of Rand is hilarious. I once saw him live do an impression of Rand as a school teacher singing... I was crying. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4PshgFFWIc
Sam Murphy
2025-02-05 17:11:34 +0000 UTCI don’t care if Sam thinks Rand is a good writer, the fact that the people who laud these shitty books are the most insufferable pricks on the planet tells me all I need to know. You didn’t build that, douchebag. -Obama, probably.
DJM
2025-02-05 15:36:11 +0000 UTCThis is the most Ayn Rand anecdote ever lol (though you have my sympathies and the guy was clearly an idiot who didn't deserve you)
Louise Duke
2025-02-05 14:53:21 +0000 UTCListening to the part about the collective and the way you discussed their commitment to “logic” above all else (body, intuition, etc.) reminded me SO much of the way I was taught to think growing up in the (white) southern Baptist tradition (“faith” above all else). The committed atheist made herself a god! Gorgeous
Addison
2025-02-05 03:35:00 +0000 UTCAntipathy toward socialist realism and admiration for Melville’s Bartleby (in the form of her father) as the basis of Randian aesthetics. Checks out, I guess.
Zach
2025-02-04 23:24:44 +0000 UTC(The Power Broker ep suggestion!).
Paul Lemaire
2025-02-04 22:35:11 +0000 UTCAlso, Coppola’s freakazoid masterpiece Megalopolis had something VERY Randian about it, as well as this obsession with America as the new Roman Empire in decadence (the theme of the past KYE episode). Coppola sold all his vineyards to finance the shoot, only to see his film destroyed by critics and the box office. But it’s a gem worth seeing if you can appreciate the kitsch and “cringe” of the whole thing, as well as delving into the strange awkward mind of a true artist gone off the deep end, yet still animated by the sheer Nietzschean/Randian will to make his vision happen against all odds and without apologies. Whatever the mindset of the film is, it’s not necessarily reflective of the right proper; in fact, Trumpian populists are very explicitly presented as the villains, and Coppola’s take comes across more as that of a confused liberal boomer having a manic episode. Which makes it all the more interesting. You have this main character of the misunderstood and uncompromising utopian architect with everyone against him—the populist oligarchs as well as the welfarist establishment—who is on a mission to save the world by basically building the Hudson Yards. Which involves demolishing some public housing projects. This character is very reminiscent of Robert Moses who is really an interesting figure at the confluence of state and market elitism, New Deal bureaucracy and reactionary Rand-like entrepreneurial contempt for the poor and “red tape”
Paul Lemaire
2025-02-04 22:35:00 +0000 UTCThe Wikipedia founders were allegedly fans of Ayn Rand
Paul Lemaire
2025-02-04 22:31:54 +0000 UTCNever understood about Ayn Rand-ism: If altruism is really about self-interest, what basis do they have to criticize it, if the altruists are just Randians who don’t know it yet? If someone wills themself to success on the basis of being or promoting altruism, aren’t these people Randian heroes too?
Nicholas Haggerty
2025-02-04 22:13:09 +0000 UTCFinally! Beautiful, long overdue ep. Really what we need is an Ayn Rand biopic, although not sure which director alive today could handle it and make something interesting…
Paul Lemaire
2025-02-04 21:45:40 +0000 UTCMight I recommend for further listening…https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-dead-authors-podcast/id466763834?i=1000161437454
Kevin Burke
2025-02-04 17:07:18 +0000 UTCI loved Sam’s observation regarding how Rand’s books appeal to an adolescent level of thinking and maturity . Small wonder that when I look at people like Musk, Bezos or Zuckerberg I see men with stunted development. Add to that the singular focus on technology without any study of humanities and the end result is that her books play an outside role with the tech types in how they view the world. I was also struck at how the belief that the world is divided into two types that of makers and takers, particularly in Atlas Shrugged. I recently read Democracy in Chains and the book essentially tracks how these ideas have been cultivated to the point where anyone who is wealthy is a “job creator “ and everyone else is a “taker.” An excellent podcast gentleman. Many thanks.
Timothy Smith
2025-02-04 14:37:34 +0000 UTCUr bullying me
Sam
2025-02-04 13:12:45 +0000 UTCChildren should not use the internet unattended. Please find an adult.
desdinova
2025-02-04 12:09:43 +0000 UTCThis was riveting, but frustrating to me. You guys describe her convincingly throughout her life as a precocious girl who never grew up and always made a virtue of necessity, but you don't make the connection to the flaws in her books and to the cult she created. And why do you accept her own description of her philosophy as reason? The only book of hers I read was For The New Intellectual. It's a willful person projecting her own preoccupations onto the world. I couldn't get past page one of the novel I tried to read. Atlas Shrugged, maybe? The characters are mouthpieces for ideas who speak to each other through megaphones.
David Gillman
2025-02-04 09:13:04 +0000 UTCNerd, puerile, fantasist, cantankerous, dogmatist, cultist, grifter, lifelong puerile resentful vengeful nerd. No wonder Rand was a darling of the American right.
Matt Gately
2025-02-04 07:59:39 +0000 UTCOr at least waiting for the non-Patreon post
Emily Kugler
2025-02-04 05:42:08 +0000 UTCThank you for doing this! I just had a student ask for a quick primer Rand and am sending this now
Emily Kugler
2025-02-04 05:40:20 +0000 UTCThis podcast makes me like ayn rand more not less. The idea of communists taking away everything you’ve ever worked for so that some bureaucrat can run it into the ground?? Imagine how awful that must have been. And everyone is like oh yeah but that was the bourgeois they aren’t human. Lol, what ? Haters gonna hate. But maybe we should … appreciate. The capitalists.
Sam
2025-02-04 04:56:19 +0000 UTCIs rand the original pickme girl?
Jacob Willkomm
2025-02-04 02:59:55 +0000 UTC(He asked someone else to prom! I cried!)
Egg
2025-02-04 02:40:03 +0000 UTCThinking about how I read all of Atlas Shrugged when I was 15 to try and impress a boy I had a crush on………………,.,.,.,,..
Egg
2025-02-04 02:39:51 +0000 UTCRand’s inversion of the communist totalitarian hierarchy reminds me of Jamelle Bouie’s recent comments on Fight Club. How, through project mayhem, the narrator/Tyler ends up just re-creating the same bureaucracy he sets out to destroy.
Tim Combes
2025-02-03 23:40:56 +0000 UTCYES WE’VE GONE SICKO MODE LET’S GOOOOOOOOOO
Jenna Harmon
2025-02-03 22:55:45 +0000 UTC*Prairie Fires! I blame autocorrect
Marshall Steinbaum
2025-02-03 22:10:16 +0000 UTCWell done on this one. I read Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged before 21 one, and there’s something in them I can’t expunge from myself, ten years later. Ayn Rand deserves some sneering, but you gave her work the seriousness and charity that I’d often missing in leftist critique.
-thundergolfer-
2025-02-03 21:12:10 +0000 UTCGlad you enjoyed! - Sam
Know Your Enemy
2025-02-03 21:04:06 +0000 UTCEnthusiastic yes to the suggestion that Caroline Fraser’s book merits an episode and that Lane’s influence is a kind of “creative nonfiction” sales/marketing active edit of her mother’s writing (this cottage industry itself shaped by Lane’s loose ethics).
Gregory Garneau
2025-02-03 19:50:55 +0000 UTCExcellent episode. It's funny how expansive a single topic can be, and it's easy to make fun of Rand's misunderstandings of Aristotle, but taking this time to examine her more closely rather than simply back away in revulsion opens more avenues of critique. I'm going to need to listen to this one a few more times to get everything and then read the book :)
genrepunk
2025-02-03 19:29:43 +0000 UTCI don't think I missed it, but it's possible, but did she say why she changed her name? I see lots of speculation but I was wondering since it seems both obvious and expected.
desdinova
2025-02-03 19:21:53 +0000 UTCFeeling like a rando rn
Sam
2025-02-03 19:13:39 +0000 UTCA real RANDom podcast good job guys
Sam
2025-02-03 19:13:11 +0000 UTCOnly 20min in but this already has me thinking about how the rationalists of today echo Rand. Also how her ideas' ubiquity coupled with her dichotomizing between individualism and collectivism, which is such a fundamental failure to grasp the nature of community and our interconnectedness, means even in rejecting Randian individualism we have a hard time imagining a better way of being in the world and in society.
genrepunk
2025-02-03 17:49:53 +0000 UTCI assume at least half of the Elon episode will be dedicated to exposing him as a Fake Gamer
Peter Jensen
2025-02-03 17:08:30 +0000 UTCI was unfortunately introduced to Ayn Rand at 14 because The Fountainhead was mentioned in The Perks of Being a Wallflower. Grew out of the bs but it was quite the detour! “Revenge of the nerd” for real Sam.
Nora
2025-02-03 16:33:46 +0000 UTCI’m sorry, I have to point out that Burns’s statement that Rose Wilder Lane is the uncredited coauthor of Little House on the Prairie is rejected by Caroline Fraser in Prairie Forest (a fantastic book that also merits an episode of this podcast, since it can be read as a sort of deconstruction of the prehistory of 20th century libertarianism). Fraser’s position on RWL’s role is more like “hands-on editor.”
Marshall Steinbaum
2025-02-03 15:49:22 +0000 UTC2h episode lets fucking go
vincent st-gelais
2025-02-03 15:15:51 +0000 UTCSome of us need the dots connected, so thank you for that!
Sam D.
2025-02-03 14:49:30 +0000 UTCIf you don't like the guest you can simply not listen instead of whatever that comment was intended to convey.
desdinova
2025-02-03 11:58:26 +0000 UTCSo your take away from the Friedman episode was "we should have this person back". Great.
Shinanoki
2025-02-03 11:15:39 +0000 UTC
