Some Thoughts on Ayn Rand (article)

Most of us do not deny that our early lives have an impact on our later lives, but such was not the case for Ayn Rand. Her defenses may mean that she was well aware of her past and its influence on her thinking and that she probably thought people in the U.S. would not know of her past. They did not in her lifetime, but as historians and psychologists, we do know better since we now understand denial and resistance: when the “patient” tries to counter everything she had experienced in her childhood, there is more reason to think this is a defensive maneuver. In Rand’s perception of society and the role of government in it, one sees a society more like the one of Imperial and early Soviet Russia than American democracy, either in the 1940s, 50s or today.

She thought that she created herself, without a past so to speak, including her basic outlook on life. Although Jews were not very welcome in the last years of Imperial Russia’s St. Petersburg, Alisa Rosenbaum’s family was well off, with a massive house and considerable staff, and she attended good schools. But her pharmacist father lost his store, the house, and the good life after the Revo-

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lution land their family was forced to move to Odessa on the Black Sea. There, Bolshevik soldiers marched in and threw the family out of their property—an important facet to understanding Rand’s thinking.

She later left no doubt about her admiration for successful businessmen whose hard-earned life was taken away by those who avoided work. She had been, as a child as well as a Jew at the border of society, with no friends and companions, and that seems to be as good a reason as any she chose her first name. Though she may have chosen Rand at random, or because it sounded strong, it seems that the name reflects a common German phrase am Rand leben, to live at or on the border [of society]. Perhaps Rand saw herself as living at the border of society, and her struggle was to be at the center of it. In this context, her choice of “Ayn” would be fascinating. In Hebrew, it means eye; so, was she focusing her eye on society from the outside?

Rand is not unique among Russian women who come to this country seeking to change their identity, except that today we have the Internet and thus cannot hide a past as readily. Even at that, for the most part we do indeed not know their pasts, and that is why marrying Americans makes so much sense to them. It is not just to be away from Russia and all of its troubles, and to be safe, but also to become part of the new society, and in that way, appear without a past and to create a more appealing present.

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