Ayn Rand, Philosophical Crusader

Re: “A Strangely Important Figure,” Andrew Stuttaford, Arts & Letters, January 26, 2005. Twenty-three years after her death, her works sell a half-million copies annually. Every year, some 14,000 high school students enter an essay contest on her novels, possibly the largest essay contest in the world. Her appeal to the idealism of youth is legendary.

Ayn Rand’s considerable cultural influence is attributable to her philosophy, which challenges the prevailing wisdom of millennia. In metaphysics, she maintained that reality exists as an objective absolute; in epistemology, that reason – our only means of gaining knowledge – is our basic means of survival, and in ethics, that the pursuit of our own rational self-interest is the highest moral purpose of our lives. Politically, she defined man’s rights on moral principles, demonstrating that the sole function of a moral government – in the form of a constitutionally limited republic, is to recognize, preserve and protect the rights of individuals.

Rand’s influence represents a sea change in philosophical thought. With a profound sense of admiration and respect, I am one of the thousands who say, “Ayn Rand changed my life.”

EDWIN R. THOMPSON
Manhattan

Inspired By Ayn Rand

Re: “A Strangely Important Figure,” Andrew Stuttaford, Arts & Letters, January 26, 2005. Ayn Rand deserves far better than a sneer. Why should anyone care about the so-called “romantic entanglements” of a great philosopher and author? And how can a philosophy be a cult that implores one to only trust one’s own judgment, and that welcomes debate and would be revised if proven untrue, illogical, or inconsistent in any area (See Ayn Rand’s essay “For The New Intellectual”)?

The fact that it is growing in influence 23 years after her death makes irrelevant the cult insult once and for all; there is no singular living figure for a cultist to blindly worship now, there are only her ideas.

GREG ZEIGERSON
Garwood, N.J.

Literarily, her often cited mastery of plot structure is not mentioned, but an out-of-context quote employing the word “shaft” is, apparently to convince us that phallic symbols and Harlequinesque prose are the stuff of Ayn Rand’s writing. Ideologically, her unique solutions to long-standing philosophical dilemmas – such as the “is/ought” problem, or the problem of universals – are not mentioned, nor even that she developed a systematic philosophy at all; but we are told that she “succumbed to the cruder forms of social Darwinism.” It’s not worth quibbling over whether this complete inaccuracy is malicious deceit or grossly negligent ignorance; for a writer in a mainstream newspaper, the sins are equal.

MARK PETER
Burbank, Calif.

To quote Kent Lansing from “The Fountainhead,” “Though how in hell one passes judgment on a man without considering the content of his brain is more than I’ll ever understand.”

PHILIP BATOR
Boston, Mass.

If there were a literary prize for “The Art of Sneering,” Andrew Stuttaford would be more than qualified for it.

TRUDI VOGT
Vista, Calif.

Applying her ideas to my own life set me on the course to both start my own business and to immigrate to America.

CHRISTIAN WERNSTEDT
Brooklyn

Andrew Stuttaford gets Ayn Rand wrong from his first sentence, where he describes her as “the high priestess of the human will.” In reality, she held that the ego is the rational mind, of which the will is only an effect.

PAUL BLAIR
Manhattan

Andrew Stuttaford writes that Ayn Rand became “a strangely” important figure in the history of American ideas. Strangely? She championed the American ideas that make The New York Sun possible, as opposed to a Pravda.

CARLOS MAURER
Mexico

Ayn Rand provided answers to fundamental philosophic questions related to concept formation, the rational foundation of ethics, and a number of other topics. Rand’s ideas will be remembered for centuries.

DAVID M. WEATHERELL
Webster, N.Y.

I expect better from The New York Sun than Andrew Stuttaford’s recent piece on Ayn Rand. It didn’t accurately portray her ideas, only your author’s hatred of them.

CATHERINE VAN ARNAM
Melrose, Mass.

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