Ayn Rand: A Sense of Life

I find this film to be little more than veneration for a woman who claimed she had no time for veneration but was more than willing to have people worship her. Rand was a hypocrite. At the end of her life she took Medicare for her lung cancer which was due to her lifetime of smoking. Thats not even mentioned in the film. I gave Rand's ideas my full attention for some 3 months a few years ago and was intrigued by them before coming to the conclusion her ideas are badly flawed. I read the Fountainhead and a number of her essays but didn't get far with Atlas Shrugged, by then I'd had enough. I'm a geriatric nurse, and I meet many people near the end of their lives and I meet their families, and see the quality of their relationships (or lack there of) and I can tell you, consistently, its those who live and care for others and open themselves and receive the care of others who have the happiest lives. I see it again and again and again. There's a name for it, its called love. Rands "individualism" is suicidal for the individual, the family and society. I'm rating this film so low because it does little more than promote these ill gotten ideas.

This documentary presents a well organized and concise picture of one of the most important thinkers of our time. If you don't know much about Ayn Rand, this film is worth watching, if only to be introduced to her ideas. Even though her philosophy is more aligned with the founding principles of America than that of any other 20th century thinker, she is all but discarded in American public schools. The popularity of twentieth century anti-mind/anti-humanism philosophies, amongst the Ivory Tower, has muted the voice of Ayn Rand in the classroom. If you grew up in the United States, you probably missed out on her side of the debate altogether. Rand's ideas are worthy of your consideration, and they're highly worthy of serious critical review.

I hope you will take the review of this film written by ChrisWN with an entire shaker of salt. The size of the shaker is up to you, but you should know that the immature ranting of ChrisWN is typical of those who despise Ayn Rand. Let the fatuous nature of his writing be the measure by which he should be taken seriously as a film critic or as a critical thinker. And, further, let his ramblings be recorded as representative of the opposite of Ayn Rand's devotion to reason.

Ayn Rand has helped me to have an integrated view of life.

She teaches for reason and trade, instead of faith and force.

She is against mysticism, which rules by means of guilt, by keeping men convinced of their insignificance on earth. She is against the dogma of man's poverty and misery on earth.

She teaches you to face the universe, free to declare your mind is competent to deal with all the problems of existence and that reason is the only means of knowledge.

Ayn Rand states that intellect is a practical faculty, a guide to man's successful existence on earth, and that its task is the study of reality (as well as the production of wealth), not contemplation of unintelligible feelings nor a special monopoly on the "unknowable".

She is for that productive person who is confident of his ability to earn his living - who takes pride in his work and in the value of his product - who drives himself with inexhaustible energy and limitless ambition to do better and still better and even better - who is willing to bear penalties for his mistakes and expects rewards for his achievements - who looks at the universe with the fearless eagerness of a child, knowing it to be intelligible - who demands straight lines, clear terms, precise definitions - who stands in full sun light and has no use for the murky fog of the hidden, the secret, the unnamed, or for any code from psycho-epistemology of guilt.

Her words will help people to free themselves from fear and force forever.

Thanks Ayn for you direction. She has given me an integrated view of life. I hope, by reading her books, you get it too.

Ayn Rand created herself out of whole cloth. This must be acknowledged, and yes it's impressive. Often an immigrant, who had to struggle for freedom, ends up doing more than a rank and file American, who takes it for granted. Rand was definitely a force to be reckoned with. Unfortunately... paradoxically... over-achievers can also be full of cr*p. Any admiration for Rand must be tempered by the fact that her writing is a mono-maniacal, unpersuasive snooze. Add to that the sheer creepy, oiliness of the also-Rands she left behind, and she's a complete wash-out. No college studies Rand's disreputable "philosophy."

Rand didn't have a body of work that became a school; instead she had a lot of hard-won, reactive opinions that became serviceable as a personal philosophy; and a generous segment of the population without rudders came to grovel at her feet, and hear why being selfish was actually a good thing; uniting sociopaths and young capitalists under one umbrella.

She quickly became a self-parody. She hated collectives terribly but paradoxically could only conceive of individualism as a cultish dogma she constrained you with. (!?) As few in America have a philosophical life, an early naive encounter with her material (as with $cientology, and Moonie literature) is apt to derail the development of actual emotional depth or a conscience for five to thirty years, lost in the fog of mystification and hero worship.

Her work follows an absurd tiresome pattern. You could write the next Rand tome by just following this handy template: A vigorously independent industrialist wants to use (insert some industry) to prove he's got big brass ones. For 1,500 pages he must endure a bizarre gang of paper-deep anti-individualists motivated by volition that no one has ever actually encountered on earth (Bad man: "grrrrr... I hate maverick individuals!" Good man: "I hate collectives!"). But with the attention of an impressively miserable woman, who only experiences joy when (pick two: she breaks beautiful things / gets put in her place sexually / she can pursue her erotic fixation with machinery) they stand together in triumph on top of (pick one: his own skyscraper, his train, some other phallic symbol) in the end. Spare yourself a read of Atlas Shrugged and just wait for Brad Pitt/Angelina Jolie's self-impressed, half-understood production which should be putting theater-goers to sleep in the next year or so.

The ultimate refutation of her ideas comes from Allen Greenspan, a Rand acolyte who when asked to explain why he allowed the country's economy to run itself into the ground, stated that he couldn't fathom that bankers would act in their own self-interest without concern for the well-being of the nation. Well, I guess that makes me smarter than you Allen. Please go away, Randlings.

I've been interested in Ayn Rand ever since I read "Atlas Shrugged" when I was only 22 years old. I didn't quite get everything Ayn was trying to say in that book at the time, and I chalked it up to my lack of life experience given my youth. When I was 40, I ran across this documentary on public TV. I figured that since 18 years had passed, watching this documentary combined with my maturity would enable me to understand Ayn Rand.

This biography is a very sanitized version of Ayn Rand's life. The biography is accurate if not complete, since there is a lack of balance in the presentation due to the absence of information that shows the flawed and even somewhat "kookie" facets of the woman. For example, she encouraged her followers to smoke to highlight mankind's dominance over fire. The film also makes out her relationship with her husband, Frank, to be an ideal romance that lasted for decades. In fact, Ayn cheated on Frank for years with colleague Nathaniel Branden. To give her credit, she was true to her philosophy in being "objective" about the affair in the sense that she insisted that both her and Branden's spouse know what was going on. She ceased being objective, though, when Branden tired of her and began having an affair with a younger woman. She threw Branden and his research out the door with all of the emotion of any human being whose heart was being "subjectively" stomped on. I bring these points up not for the purpose of character assassination. Instead, I think that that it is difficult to get a balanced view of someone whose life work was pronouncing how life should be lived without examining the both the flaws and triumphs in that person's own life.

The documentary did give me some insight into Ayn Rand's philosophy, though, and I'll have to say that she seems to be someone who threw the baby out with the bath water at every turn. As a youth in Russia, prior to the Russian revolution, she saw the failure of the Russian orthodox church to connect with the parishioners and help their lives in any way. This caused her to become an atheist without causing her to explore if it was in fact that this particular institution of religion was the failure, rather than the concept of God. After the revolution she saw the utter failure of the policies of Communism, and this caused her to believe that pure unadulterated capitalism is the only economic system that works, not bothering to realize that there might be a middle ground that looks out for society's weaker members while also rewarding enterprise and hard work.

The fact that Ayn was what is an "odd bird" in 21st century America - an atheist capitalist - can only make me wonder what she would have to say about today's situation of fundamentalist Christian dogma intertwined with cut-throat capitalism that has become today's Republican party.

If you are interested in learning the main points about Ayn Rand's life, this is a good source for the facts and even some insights - particularly good are the clips from her appearances on the Donahue show shortly before her death. However, realize that this biography is somewhat sanitized.