The Resurrection of Ayn Rand? Just in time for Easter

Little noticed upon the national outpouring of joy over the inauguration of America's first African-American President, Barack Obama, and of the installation of solid Democrat majorities in the House and Senate is the sudden explosion of sales of the books written by Ayn Rand.

This is good. Ayn Rand's body of work is a powerful evocation and defense of the individual as the preeminent component of society. In her view, the state and the mass of people it embraces and protects are mere parasitic appendages to the exuberant individual.

This is not to say that Ayn Rand's viewpoint was without flaws. The most serious weakness of her philosophy was her inability to understand how important God and religion was to human individual freedom. Fortunately for Ms. Rand (and for the rest of us as well), God's love for her never did depend in any way on a return of the favor.

But, the fact that hers was at base a shallow and simplistic pastiche of Nietszche, Adam Smith, irreligion, etc. is not cause for denying Ms. Rand a voice in todays America. Young people can learn a lot about crime fighting from Hardy Boy books, gaining thereby an excitment for the subject matter that might lead them to do the work of mastering the real nuances of criminal justice. So too reading The Fountainhead or Atlas Shrugged can lead to an interest in the importance of the individual in our society, and might result in adults arming themselves with the real intellectual firepower necessary to protect our unique destiny as a nation.

Destiny? No, Providence. For as the Founders well knew, our rights as free men came from God. Ours was not therefore a destiny in the Greek sense, which could turn out to be tragic, but Providence in the Judeo-Christian sense, which depends upon the power of a God that is Good and whose Will cannot be denied. And His Will is freedom for all.

So, as we remember the resurrection of our Lord this day, we can also look for the possible resurrection in our political life of a truer appreciation of the individual, as seems to be indicated by the rise again of Ayn Rand as a literary voice in our culture. At the same time, we can marvel at the continual workings of the Holy Spirit of He Who loves all unconditionally, equally, and most important of all in this day and time, individually.