Two new biographies examine the life and legacy of Ayn Rand. Johann Hari of Slate reads them both responds with a crystaline and scathing evisceration of Rand's philosophy based on the context of the events of her life. [more inside]
posted by Lacking Subtlety on Nov 2, 2009 - 124 comments

"What is so striking, and serves as the clearest mark of Rand’s lasting influence, is the language of moral absolutism applied by the right to these questions. Conservatives define the see-sawing of the federal tax-and-transfer system between slightly redistributive and very slightly redistributive as a culture war over capitalism, or a final battle to save the free enterprise system from the hoard of free-riders." John Chait on the debt modern conservatism owes to Ayn Rand. [more inside]
posted by OmieWise on Sep 15, 2009 - 88 comments

Ayn Rand discusses in a 1979 Donahue appearance her love of "Charlie's Angels." Amy Wallace reveals the "unlikely friendship" between Rand and actress Farrah Fawcett. Chris Matthew Sciabarra explains the "The Dialectical Meaning of 'Charlie's Angels.'"
posted by Knappster on Jul 1, 2009 - 25 comments

Whoopi Doesn't Want To Be Overtaxed. Is she Going Galt?
posted by Xurando on Mar 6, 2009 - 112 comments

Ayn Rand and Phil Donahue. [more inside]
posted by absalom on Jan 21, 2009 - 150 comments

"She let out a rich, powerful moan, like the sound of a passing diesel train in the night." Jeremiah Tucker updates Ayn Rand's objectivist novel for the current financial crisis. [more inside]
posted by LMGM on Nov 28, 2008 - 47 comments

You should contact me if you are a skinny woman. If your words are a meaningful progression of concepts rather than a series of vocalizations induced by your spinal cord for the purpose of complementing my tone of voice.... Are you Libertarian? And Lonely? Is the Atlas in your pants "Shrugging"?
posted by orthogonality on Nov 18, 2008 - 167 comments

"And, why," Lucy says, "a lamp post!" The lamp post shines like a monument to industry.

Aslan Shrugged 1 2 3 4 [via a review of Atlas Shrugged in The Valve]
posted by Kattullus on Jul 16, 2007 - 53 comments

The Ayn Rand Institute held their yearly confab in Telluride, CO, near the purported location of the fiction Gault's Gulch of Atlas Shrugged, celebrating the 50th anniversary of one of the most turgid novels of all time. Part of the program included a panel of academics discussing their experiences "as objectivists." The Chronicle of Higher Education reports on the state of objectivism in academe. Rand Grants are up, tenure is tendentious, and a for-profit Founders Institute appears to be foundering. (more inside)
posted by beelzbubba on Jul 14, 2007 - 111 comments

Atlas Shrugged is again in the pipeline to be made into a movie. BACK in the 1970s Albert S. Ruddy, the producer of “The Godfather,” first approached Ayn Rand to make a movie of her novel “Atlas Shrugged.” But Rand, who had fled the Soviet Union and gone on to inspire capitalists and egoists everywhere, worried aloud, apparently in all seriousness, that the Soviets might try to take over Paramount to block the project.
posted by Brian B. on Jan 20, 2007 - 142 comments

Keep on Shrugging: apparently the planned film of Ayn Rand's much-beloved Atlas Shrugged -- a chief vehicle for her philosophy "Objectivism" -- is moving ahead. It's now planned as a trilogy and has a studio, a (draft) script, funding, and (tentatively) Angelina Jolie as Dagny Taggart (the star) -- she's apparently a big fan. For background, here's the Objectivism Mockery links page, including the brilliant, now-vanished "Objectifism."
posted by grobstein on Jul 13, 2006 - 107 comments

An interview with Brad Bird.

Bird: Some people said it was Ayn Rand or something like that, which is ridiculous. Other people threw Nietzsche around, which I also find ridiculous. But I think the vast majority of people took it the way I intended. Some people said it was sort of a right-wing feeling, but I think that's as silly of an analysis as saying The Iron Giant was left-wing. I'm definitely a centrist and feel like both parties can be absurd.
posted by hughbot on Mar 14, 2005 - 75 comments

The U.S should not help tsunami victims according to those ever-thoughtful fellows at the Ayn Rand Institute. Why not? Because, Objectively speaking, altruism is evil, especially collective altruism.
posted by jdroth on Dec 31, 2004 - 84 comments

WHO IS BOB PARR? Critics, bloggers and other commentators have, usually off-handedly, linked The Incredibles to Ayn Rand. Well, it turns out the Objectivists are taking the comparison quite seriously. Yet the more exact, direct forebear of "if everybody's special, then nobody is" is clearly... Gilbert & Sullivan, no?
posted by soyjoy on Nov 28, 2004 - 39 comments

10 Easy Steps to Objectivism. When you have achieved true Objectivistivity, join Friend Bear on a visit to the Objectivist Theme Park, so that you too can be one with Ayn Rand's Floating Head.
posted by brownpau on Feb 18, 2004 - 46 comments

I'll take "Western Superiority Complexes" for $500, Alex... Let the wars begin: The ever controversial Ayn Rand Institute suggests that on the eve of Columbus Day we reject revisionist Politically Correct history that Columbus was a butcher. By what justification could we state that Western Civilization is superior to others? Is multiculturalism a bad idea? Does this suggest we have a 'right' to wipe out peoples inferior to us? Darwinism at its potential worst--or a scary reality to admit?
posted by tgrundke on Oct 11, 2002 - 60 comments

Why Do They Hate Us? A fine essay by Robert Tracinski about the mindset of university intellectuals. The closing line sums it up concisely; "It is the job of university intellectuals to understand, to transmit and to defend the intellectual achievements of 2,500 years of Western civilization. We can now see clearly that today's academics have betrayed that sacred trust. We must seek out better guardians of reason and progress."
posted by Oxydude on Oct 12, 2001 - 44 comments

Crime or War? Dianne Durante: "If it was a crime by an individual, like the Oklahoma City bombing, then we would gather the evidence and bring the perpetrator to trial. If it was a crime by individuals sponsored and abetted by a foreign government, then it was an act of war, and is a matter for military action: immediate and decisive. If the attack was in fact government-sponsored, then capturing and punishing individual killers is less crucial than preventing further attacks by the foreign government."
posted by mw on Sep 17, 2001 - 0 comments

These aren't your father's Objectivists -- they're WACKY! They like wacky rock music! They care for wacky birds! Being Objectivists, they believe themselves to be pundits -- but WACKY ones! I mean, look at these costumes -- these are Objectivists who knows how to have fun!
posted by tweebiscuit on Jul 22, 2001 - 40 comments