WendyMcElroy.com
Rand, the motivational guruFriend and blog reader J.P. writes in regarding Sunday's post "Rand the traditionalist, Rand the original thinker"...
I enjoyed your piece on Ayn. You certainly hit several worthy nails on the head. But there is one nail that constantly gets overlooked.
We know that a survey by the Library of Congress showed that people named Atlas Shrugged as the most influential book in their life, second only to the Bible in popularity. Over and over we find people mentioning how they love reading The Fountainhead or Atlas or the Rand novels in general.
Yet, what is often overlooked is that a very large percentage of the people so influenced would not be Objectivists or libertarians no matter how widely we define the terms. Many are apolitical, with no real viewpoint on politics at all. Others may be open opponents of libertarian ideas yet they continue to offer praise to Rand for what they received when they read her novels.
Ayn Rand is ignored as one of the greatest motivational writers in American history. People mean it when they say, "Ayn Rand changed my life." And they aren't talking about epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, or politics. They are talking about how they view themselves and how they view life. What they got from Ayn was a message that they are competent to live and worthy of living. They got the message that they can take pride in their accomplishments and love living for its own sake.
Many of these people go on to be accomplished in their fields and many do things which Ayn, or you, or myself, would disapprove of. But they got much of the drive for living from what they imbibed in Atlas or The Fountainhead.
What is fascinating is that the Rand motivational message goes deeper than most. Few people will name the main motivational gurus as being responsible for changing their lives decades after their initial encounter. But many years after their initial reading of Rand, people will acknowledge her for a profound change in how they view their own life. I periodically do a Google news search on Ayn Rand. Repeatedly stories turn up about someone telling how Rand gave them something important. I remember sports figures, fashion models, honor students, businessmen, actors and countless others all saying that Rand changed how they perceive their life and how they perceive their work. It really is quite astounding.
This is the most unexplored area of Rand's influence that I can think of, yet it may well be the largest influence she has on the world today—and one that even her critics would have to acknowledge is beneficial to those so influenced.
I enjoyed your piece on Ayn. You certainly hit several worthy nails on the head. But there is one nail that constantly gets overlooked.
We know that a survey by the Library of Congress showed that people named Atlas Shrugged as the most influential book in their life, second only to the Bible in popularity. Over and over we find people mentioning how they love reading The Fountainhead or Atlas or the Rand novels in general.
Yet, what is often overlooked is that a very large percentage of the people so influenced would not be Objectivists or libertarians no matter how widely we define the terms. Many are apolitical, with no real viewpoint on politics at all. Others may be open opponents of libertarian ideas yet they continue to offer praise to Rand for what they received when they read her novels.
Ayn Rand is ignored as one of the greatest motivational writers in American history. People mean it when they say, "Ayn Rand changed my life." And they aren't talking about epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, or politics. They are talking about how they view themselves and how they view life. What they got from Ayn was a message that they are competent to live and worthy of living. They got the message that they can take pride in their accomplishments and love living for its own sake.
Many of these people go on to be accomplished in their fields and many do things which Ayn, or you, or myself, would disapprove of. But they got much of the drive for living from what they imbibed in Atlas or The Fountainhead.
What is fascinating is that the Rand motivational message goes deeper than most. Few people will name the main motivational gurus as being responsible for changing their lives decades after their initial encounter. But many years after their initial reading of Rand, people will acknowledge her for a profound change in how they view their own life. I periodically do a Google news search on Ayn Rand. Repeatedly stories turn up about someone telling how Rand gave them something important. I remember sports figures, fashion models, honor students, businessmen, actors and countless others all saying that Rand changed how they perceive their life and how they perceive their work. It really is quite astounding.
This is the most unexplored area of Rand's influence that I can think of, yet it may well be the largest influence she has on the world today—and one that even her critics would have to acknowledge is beneficial to those so influenced.
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