Skip to main content

Breaking news! Ryan repudiates Rand!

“The reason I got involved in public service, by and large, if I had to credit one thinker, one person, it would be Ayn Rand."                                                                                       - Rep. Paul Ryan (R - Wisconsin)

This Paul Ryan quote came from a 2005 gathering in Washington that honored the author and libertarian philosopher Ayn Rand, the woman who he acknowledged had had an enormous impact on his life and his career. The woman whose philosophy had, in fact, inspired him to go into politics and to try to remake the world in her image. Ryan was famous for requiring his interns to read Rand's magnum opus, Atlas Shrugged, and for giving the book as a Christmas present every year.  In countless interviews, he was very open about her influence on his life.

Accordingly, as the Republicans' point man on budget matters, he wrote budgets which were completely draconian in their punishment of the powerless poor and middle class and their distribution of largess to the richest and most powerful among us. For this, he was heaped with praise by his fellow Republicans and by Washington pundits who anointed him as a Very Serious Person.

Recently, though, some people - other than Paul Krugman who's been there all along - have begun to point out some of the flaws in Mr. Ryan's budgetary philosophy. And now the Catholic bishops have denounced the budget on religious grounds, calling it un-Christian. Apparently the bishops have noticed that sticking it to the poor is not really what Jesus would have done. And this criticism from the bishops, it seems, has been the final straw for the Catholic Mr. Ryan. Suddenly, he has decided that he doesn't really admire that atheist philosopher Rand after all!
He was interviewed for this week’s National Review, and he explicitly repudiated Ayn Rand.
"I reject her philosophy. It’s an atheist philosophy. It reduces human interactions down to mere contracts and it is antithetical to my worldview. If somebody is going to try to paste a person’s view on epistemology to me, then give me Thomas Aquinas, who believed that man needs divine help in the pursuit of knowledge. Don’t give me Ayn Rand. "
It sounds to me as if Ryan has been taking lessons from the Etch-a-Sketch candidate, shaking everything up and trying to reset it. So will we now see him renouncing his budget which is the very embodiment of Rand's morality and political perspective? I won't hold my breath.

Whenever I think of Ryan and his slavish adherence in his political life to the philosophy expressed in Atlas Shrugged, I'm always reminded of  blogger Kung Fu Monkey's take on it:
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.
Personally, I was always enchanted by the orcs, elves and hobbits and never was enticed to the dark side by  Rand/Sauron.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Poetry Sunday: Don't Hesitate by Mary Oliver

How about we share another Mary Oliver poem? After all, you can never have too many of those. In this one, the poet seems to acknowledge that it is often hard to simply live in and enjoy the moment, perhaps because we are afraid it can't last. She urges us to give in to that moment and fully experience the joy. Although "much can never be redeemed, still, life has some possibility left." Don't Hesitate by Mary Oliver If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed or about to be. We are not wise, and not very often kind. And much can never be redeemed. Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this is its way of fighting back, that sometimes something happens better than all the riches or power in the world. It could be anything, but very likely you notice it in the instant when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the case. Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid of its plenty. Joy is no...
19 comments
Read more

Poetry Sunday: Blackberry-Picking by Seamus Heaney

My mother was a farm wife and a prodigious canner. She canned fruit and vegetables from the garden, even occasionally meat. But the best thing that she canned, in my opinion, was blackberry jam. Even as I type those words my mouth waters!  Of course, before she could make that jam, somebody had to pick the blackberries. And that somebody was quite often named Dorothy. I think Seamus Heaney might have spent some time among the briars plucking those delicious black fruits as well, so he would have known that "Once off the bush the fruit fermented, the sweet flesh would turn sour." They don't keep; you have to get that jam made in a hurry! Blackberry-Picking by Seamus Heaney Late August, given heavy rain and sun For a full week, the blackberries would ripen. At first, just one, a glossy purple clot Among others, red, green, hard as a knot. You ate that first one and its flesh was sweet Like thickened wine: summer's blood was in it Leaving stains upon the tongue and lust ...
6 comments
Read more

Poetry Sunday: Hymn for the Hurting by Amanda Gorman

You probably remember poet Amanda Gorman from her appearance at the inauguration of President Biden. She read her poem "The Hill We Climb" on that occasion. After the senseless slaughter in Uvalde this week, she was inspired to write another poem which was published in The New York Times. It seemed perfect for the occasion and so I stole it in order to feature it here, just in case you didn't get a chance to read it in the Times . Hymn for the Hurting by Amanda Gorman Everything hurts, Our hearts shadowed and strange, Minds made muddied and mute. We carry tragedy, terrifying and true. And yet none of it is new; We knew it as home, As horror, As heritage. Even our children Cannot be children, Cannot be. Everything hurts. It’s a hard time to be alive, And even harder to stay that way. We’re burdened to live out these days, While at the same time, blessed to outlive them. This alarm is how we know We must be altered — That we must differ or die, That we must triumph or try. ...
24 comments
Read more