Ayn Rand

[fpb]

There is one person in HP fandom who detested me instinctively, and whom I detested with equal intensity, almost as soon as we became aware of each other. Now I have found out why. She is an Ayn Rand fan. I am, to begin with, too old to put up with Rand's infantile attempts at philosophy - she is one of those people who managed to remain mentally fifteen all their lives - but I also have my roots in European Socialism and Christian Democracy, of all political views in the world the most offensive to an Objectivist (as her cultists arrogantly call themselves). Rand was a disaster and a hypocrite in real life, and her doctrines are only rescued from having to be called revolting by their sheer, self-parodying stupidity. One would think that anyone over the age of sixteen would be able to see through such obiter dicta as "altruism is the root of all evil" or her praise of the dollar sign; alas, America is still full of people without enough culture or self-understanding to see through this sort of thing. One of the things that make Europe still superior to America is that there is no way that a Rand phenomenon could ever take place among us. We do have our follies, but ultra-individualism is not one of them.

Comments

Re: Hey, watch what you say about the U.S. (2/2)

[chthonya]

(Sorry for replying at such length that LJ made me post in two stages! Here's my reply to some specific points you made:)


We "make it" because we work for what we have

As do we, although in Europe we don't work quite as much because respect for family life is manifested practically in longer holidays and a restriction on involuntary working hours. And there are many different ways of organising work; co-operative structures can result in successful businesses that offer more freedom, equality and customer focus than an ultra-individualistic ethos.

One fundamental difference between Europe and North America that underlies American individualism is population density. It's easy to get the impression that individual success is primarily down to individual effort when there are enough natural resources to meet everyone's expectations, or where national identity is based on a history in which self-sufficient people could provide for their families by moving west and displacing existing inhabitants into empty land. In Europe such a proposition is simply not practical: either the 'have nots' lower their expectation, or we work together for efficient and fair management of resources. Without access to 'the means of production' it's damn hard to 'make it', however hard one works.


The fact is, at least we have the freedom to choose ultra-individualism.

In the voting booth that's true. It's more debatable if we desire a safe and free and prosperous society in the future: unless population densities are very low relative to resources, exercising individual freedom almost inevitably impacts on someone else's freedom.


European superiority? Perhaps in art and "culture" (which is seemingly replaced by the worst kind of moral relativism), but certainly not in the "quality of life" category.

That very much depends on what you mean by 'quality of life'.

The average quality of US healthcare (for those with insurance) may be better than the average quality here, but my quality of life is increased by my freedom from the worry that I or my (hypothetical) family will be denied access to it if I lose my job.

Being able to walk wherever I like in my city with a low fear of violence is a definite boost to life quality - this was brought home to me when a visiting American friend panicked at the sound of fireworks because she assumed it was gunfire.

An average suburban American will likely have a bigger house than a suburban European - but that is again down to lower population density. There simply wouldn't be space for us all to have large properties, so working harder can't expand the land available but merely pushes up the prices of the existing land. We could of course sacrifice more rural land for housing, but the loss of recreational space would decrease quality of life in that area.

Conversely, geography works in our favour when it means that more of us are within easy reach of cultural facilities - the US certainly has excellent theatres, orchestras etc, but they are harder to access if it takes a couple of days drive to get to them, rather than a couple of hours on a train.


But please don't think that I'm claiming that Europe is 'superior' - I don't think superiority is a useful or safe concept to apply to nations. There are aspects of cultures on both sides of the Atlantic that are particular to that country's history and geography and not transferable, just as there are aspects of both that are not very practical in the context of globalisation - but there have been great achievements on both sides, and in my opinion much benefit to be had by discussing and understanding the differences.


I think European snobbery (especially when manifested in governments) is far worse than American individualism.

I'm not keen on snobbery myself, but I'm curious about why you think it is worse. In what respect?

Re: Hey, watch what you say about the U.S. (2/2)

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Would anyone believe that all this has been unleashed by a few contemptous sentences of mine about Ayn Rand, an author whom all of us (Chthonya, The Preciouss, Private Maladict and I) uniformly dislike?