The Being-Thrown of Ayn Rand

I was quite startled to find out that a 1991-polling placed Atlas Shrugged as "the second-most influential book (after the Bible) for Americans". Atlas Shrugged is one of Ayn Rand’s novels. Seriously? Are Americans that capitalistic, individualistic?

Ayn Rand is not an economist but with her philosophy which she calls objectivism, she is described by one article as "the modern fountainhead of laissez-faire capitalism.” She is also described “as an impassioned, uncompromising, and unapologetic proponent of reason, liberty, individualism, and rational self-interest."

She fervently criticizes altruism. For her, the highest form of happiness is fulfilling one's own dreams, not someone else's – or the public's. She sees man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute.

It is usually very easy to attack too-radical-thoughts. I am not going over details about her philosophy for I have not read much of her books. But perhaps by reading her books (mostly novels) we could understand Americans much better (a smiley sign here). I seldom heard her thoughts being discussed here in STF Driyarkara or in Indonesia. Perhaps they don’t regard her as an important philosopher as the Americans do.

I have not read Atlas Shrugged though I have the book at home. I also have The Fountainhead. My friend Dede has given me those books ages ago. He even gave me The Fountainhead twice because he forgot that he actually has already given me that book once. I must have looked like I desperately needed to read the book. Do I look like an “objectivist”? Or do I look like a lost capitalist who needs to repent?

But I have read Anthem, Rand’s other novel. In that book, she criticizes communalism, totalitarianism, and at the same time passionately promotes individualism. However, I find that her criticism is rather too extreme. She is overdoing it. Perhaps it has got something to do with her life experience. She was a Russian native who ran away to the States years ago when Russia / USSR was still very much a communistic country. Her extreme reaction against communism, totalitarianism and her strong beliefs in individualism are therefore understandable.

Don’t we all always think or philosophize from our situatedness, our being-thrown-in-the-world? This is how I perceive later Heidegger as a rather too-extreme “correction” to early Heidegger after the Nazi event. But does it mean we are always determined by our situatedness? What does this determination mean if so?