Heroes and Cowards

Be a hero. If not now, when? Before it's too late… More true now than ever.

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Originally published 12-04-2000.

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I would rather have a single hero at my side than a thousand cowards at my back.

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Ayn Rand could have saved herself a lot of heartache and unpleasantness if she had heeded the kinds of advice rampant in our country:

“Go along to get along.”

“Don’t offend anyone.”

“Be compassionate.”

“Avoid telling the full truth.”

“Never say what you really believe or feel.”

“Abstain from intolerance.”

“Don’t judge people.”

“Avoid absolutes.”

Many people who know about Rand and her writings hate her and despise what she believed. She’s been called a Nazi, a fascist, and a cold, unfeeling woman who peddled cheap philosophy to impressionable young people. A cult leader.

It is certainly true that many of her friendships fell by the wayside during her lifetime. Isabel Paterson (author of The God of the Machine). Two of her closest companions, Barbara and Nathaniel Branden. Many members of “The Collective” who hung out with her in New York City. Especially in her later years (after the hostile reception Atlas Shrugged received), Rand appeared to be more rigid and sensitive to slights and disagreements, even from relative strangers.

Of course, if she had followed the politically correct admonitions that have seeped into the pores even of many who profess today to uphold liberty and reason, she would never have written what she did. At best, she would be a figure obscure to those active in the movement to restore classical liberalism and virtually unknown to the public, at large.

She did not, obviously, tread down that path of least resistance. For Rand, truth and freedom remained her highest ideals. Even on those occasions when she failed to live up to her own standards, still she adhered as best she could to the principles she and her predecessors had discovered.

Then and now, the vitriol heaped upon her and those who accept the principles of the philosophy she developed is ironic and sad. Those who most loudly proclaim the evils of intolerance and hatred and the virtues of compassion and sensitivity are, of course, the least tolerant and compassionate, the most insensitive and hate-filled when it comes to those who disagree with them. They may heap any amount of scorn upon their opponents, promulgate the most outrageous lies that favor them or disparage their enemies, and commit the most egregious examples of incivility. If, however, those who struggle against that irrationality, that collectivism and statism, that sacrificial altruism merely speak the truth, they are derided, condemned, and ostracized for their supposed shortcomings in humanity.

Double-standards and self-contradiction are hardly surprising, though, for those who reject objectivity, who view truth as nonexistent or something to be manipulated, and who are fully and deeply committed to the notions that “might makes right,” that the “ends justify the means.”

In 1962, at the Ford Hall Forum in Boston, Massachusetts, Ayn Rand delivered a lecture entitled, “The Fascist New Frontier.” In this talk, she began with a recitation of a political program advocated by many people. Government guaranteed right to employment; care for the elderly; special favors for small businesses; expansion of public education; public health coverage; prohibition of child labor; programs to fight materialism; and an acknowledgement that the good of the many must come before the good of the one.

These proposals of the Nazi party in 1920 Germany fit quite comfortably, of course, in the portfolios of 98% of our politicians and in the desires of 98% of the adult population in this country.

Rand went on to point out the similarities between these ideas and principles of the fascists and those of the administration of John Kennedy.

Distressingly, given the promises and programs advanced by the major political parties—from expanded Medicare and Social Security benefits to extensions of government-run schools to include preschool—and the stated wishes of the populace, we have made little intellectual progress in the decades since. What is rather amazing, though, is—that by today’s standards—Kennedy might well be seen as a moderate or even a conservative politician (as when he advocated large tax cuts to energize the economy). That a platform considered “liberal” in its day appears “moderate” now is only one indicator of how far we have slid down that slippery slope to open fascism.

When Rand insisted that the published version of her speech be included in the collection of essays that became The Virtue of Selfishness, editor Bennett Cerf at Random House balked at fulfilling his original commitment. Rand took her collection elsewhere. (The essay remained unpublished in book form until 1998 when it appeared in the revised edition of The Ayn Rand Column.)

Rand could, of course, have acceded to Cerf’s concerns and maintained a cordial relationship with him and his publishing company. She could have said, “Oh, dear. I don’t wish to offend anyone,” and toned down her rhetoric, diluted her analyses, and eschewed controversial subjects.

And in doing so, violated the essence of her character, betrayed her integrity, and destroyed what made her unique.

But Ayn Rand was a hero. She had the “courage of her convictions.” Indeed, she was unafraid of confrontation and disagreement and had more cojones than most of her male contemporaries. (Why is it perfectly all right for the collectivists, the irrationalists, and the altruists to disagree with those who defend reason, liberty, and self-interest…but it is shameful, nasty, and morally wrong for the latter to disagree with the former?)