The truth about Ayn Rand

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Yesterday, Paul Krugman quoted the best line he'd "ever heard about Ayn Rand's influence." And it's a really good one:

There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.

I didn't see where this was going -- until the last line, of course -- but only because I consider Atlas Shrugged (and everything Rand ever wrote) to be far worse and far more damaging than "a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world."

If anything, this line, while accurate, understates Rand's demented and destructive influence on her weirdly cultish followers -- and, of course, she remains a powerful influence on American conservatism, which is also "emotionally stunted," "socially crippled," and "unable to deal with the real world."