Where Ayn Rand went wrong — It’s the big men stupid
Ayn Rand predicted America’s descent into fascism with the logic that predators can take advantage of altruism and collectivism to take control. She reasoned that if we remove all altruism and collectivism then we remove the threat of fascism.
That logic is just wrong. We don’t need altruism or collectivism for fascism — just the belief that following a dear leader will benefit you.
It’s not a strong state that is so dangerous; it’s the belief in a strong man. Ayn Rand thought that strong states enable the rise of a dictator. Avoid strong states and you avoid dictatorship. However it’s really weak states that promote dictatorship. When basic needs are not met people become open to big men short cuts.
By consistently promoting big men in all of her extremely influential writings, Rand helped cause deregulation and the compromised state that world wide encouraged fascism. Leave the big men in control was the cry of her followers like Alan Greenspan. Let the big men do what they want was the policy of Greenspan’s corrupt peers Bill Clinton and Larry Summers.
It’s of course no coincidence that Rand got this wrong as if she had identified big men as the problem then her works would never have been promoted by the business class. The fact that she even says that fascism is socialism for businesses didn’t stop her contributing to its rise.
Ayn Rand sees individual creative genius as the pinnacle of human potential. This is also obviously wrong. Lone humans never create anything of merit. Every invention is the product of a collective effort. Even Rand’s philosophy is a clear extension of other philosophers and not some maverick idea created in a vacuum.
In fact most religions advocate worshipping big men or women and turning to them in times of need. The hopepunk story telling tradition of a community saving itself is submerged in a sea of noblebright savior stories.
Part of the widespread support for noblebright comes from patriarchy — a lone male warrior king to the rescue helps prove a man should stay in charge and Rand explicitly advocates admiring masculinity. But another maybe larger part comes from story consumers wanting to identify with a heroic character.
So are we trapped? Every kid is raised on noblebright that at most has a party of heroes instead of a single protagonist. Then adults raised on these stories and the resulting religions and ideologies worship individual heroism and so the big men seeking to enslave them.
Ayn Rand correctly identifies communism and capitalism as two sides of the same coin but it’s not because they are both built on collectivism. It’s because they are both vehicles for putting big men in power.
There are of course some humans that are genuinely skilled enough to merit admiration. However these humans are not the stars of noblebright stories.
Harry Potter is lauded over Hermione because most readers are loved by their mother (the source of his power) but very few are scholastic prodigies. Luke Skywalker begins his journey as a nobody living on a remote area of a remote planet. Tech billionaires who made it without tech skills are more popular.
One possible way out of this trap is to stop telling noblebright stories intended for near universal appeal. Woke stories not only undermine patriarchy — they undermine big men in general. One person gets a story where Hermione is the hero and another where it’s Cho Chang. The more variation from the stereotypical asshole protagonist of Rand’s novels, the less chance of people putting a real life representation into power.
However the need to feel special is still going to be powerful and simply having Arya Stark doing the slaying doesn’t turn Game of Thrones into a hopepunk story. It’s so much easier to feel special in a world you imagine is run by special people. Then you are only a step away from actively helping big men into power.
It’s a paradox that the need to personally feel special leads to hero worship and big men and fascism where one becomes part of a collective without individual identity. In an increasingly fascist society the fast track to actually being special is to reject big men. But that won’t get you the acclaim of others, fascists have a bright line between special and different. It’s always high school in the fascist mind and the different are shunned while the special are popular.
It’s a paradox that Rand’s infatuation with negative freedom led to the loss of the right to abortion which she vehemently insisted should be universal. It’s a paradox that Christians supported Trump to make the US more religious when he will surely speed the decline of spirituality. It’s a paradox that Putin’s belief in himself is only crippling the country he’s trying to make strong. It’s a paradox that worshipping big men will fail those that dream of upper class family legacy in our baby bust world.
Here lies the only real way out of the trap: everyone educated on the absolute certainty that big men adulation will only ever lead to the opposite of whatever you were after.