Letter on Rand's Detractors

By Joseph Kellard


The Smokey Mountain News in North Carolina published a letter I wrote in response to the newspaper’s Jan. 7 editorial “Who is Ayn Rand?”

http://tinyurl.com/82fynn


The editorial was written to accompany an article, “Who controls what’s taught?,” by Julia Merchant, which begins: “Western Carolina University’s College of Business recently secured a $1 million donation from BB&T — but not before discerning faculty fought to loosen the strings that came with the donation.”

http://tinyurl.com/78l4ck


Here’s my letter as originally written and published:

http://tinyurl.com/95sym7


Rand attackers are usually gratuitous


To the Editor:

I’m glad to see that your editorial board recognizes the enduring impact of Ayn Rand’s philosophy of Objectivism on our culture (“Who is Ayn Rand?,” Jan. 7, 2009).


Of course, it’s no surprise that the modern philosophers Darryl Hale speaks of are antagonistic toward Rand. That’s because her supposedly “lightweight” ideas seriously challenge and rock their philosophies at their very core. When I come across critics of Rand’s philosophy and her novels — “The Fountainhead” and “Atlas Shrugged” — particularly among so-called intellectuals, I find few of them provide any serious grounding for their critiques. Usually, they are outright ad hominem attacks, or mere drive-by gratuitous remarks, such as the one in your editorial: Rand “carried her ideas too far.”


Surely these tactics are signs of lightweights, and are a complete contrast to Rand, who could and did take any philosophy, whether she agreed with it or not, and reduce it to its fundamentals.


Joseph Kellard
East Meadow, N.Y.