(1) The Genesis
The history and legend of Ayn Rand is a monumental story, much of it, still being played out in many parts of the world outside the United States. While Michael Paxton’s award-winning documentary Sense of Life illustrates her heroic struggle in the face of a hostile world, we find that beyond her own efforts, the legend of Ayn Rand is a living and functioning part of life that has a power of its own—separate from what Ayn Rand was as an individual and an intellectual.
The tremendous power of Ayn Rand’s novels and ideas to form and shape a culture is apparent to many Americans who witnessed the birth and growth of Objectivism, and its increasing influence on American culture. I saw much of this with my own eyes, and experienced like many others, the various attitudes amongst people, vacillating from rabid hostility, to moderate acceptance, to outright love and admiration.
Like many, I thought of Ayn Rand and Objectivism as an American phenomenon, perhaps a New York phenomenon. Then, one day in Buenos Aires, Argentina, all of these views were challenged. Very much by accident, I saw that Atlas Shrugged had arrived with a force and flair to the southern cone of Latin America—the land of Francisco Domingo Carlos Andres Sebastian d'Anconia.
Strolling Along One Of The Main pedestrian walkways in Buenos Aires, Argentina in January, 2004, I saw Atlas Shrugged in its Spanish version, called La Rebelión de Atlas, in the window of a one of the main bookstore chains. It was a pleasant shock to see the book, and I had to reorient myself to make sure I wasn’t manufacturing reality instead of witnessing it. The long plane trip had tired me; I hadn’t slept much the night before; and hence, I was somewhat suspicious of my sense faculties and what I was seeing. All of this suspicion was aided by the fact that I had no idea that a new Spanish-language edition of Atlas Shrugged had arrived in Argentina—a new edition to replace the older, very flawed edition that originated in Spain under the fascist regime of Francisco Franco.
With the passing of the days and as I covered more and more of the city, I was to experience that initial shock over and over again. I would see Atlas Shrugged time and time again in the windows of bookstores. I realized that the appearance of Atlas Shrugged was no freak accident, but rather could be described as a cultural phenomenon—like so much of the Ayn Rand legend—mostly ignored and uncovered in the media, but yet very real to the thousands of independent thinkers seeking a different, more radical view of the world.
At Distal Libros, one of the main bookstore chains in Argentina, Atlas Shrugged was prominently displayed at all the branches that I witnessed, perhaps more than ten in the central Buenos Aires area.
Cuspide Libros had a tower display of Atlas Shrugged in many of its stores, a double stack of books starting on the floor and rising to chest level of a man the size of John Galt.
At El Ateneo bookstore in fashionable Recoleta, a former theatre now converted into a giant bookstore, Atlas Shrugged was listed as number seven on the best-seller list. All of the other best sellers were paperback editions and sold in the area of 25 pesos, eight dollars. Atlas Shrugged sold for 87 pesos, or just under 30 dollars.
As one entered the store, there was a huge island of Atlas Shrugged books sitting on wooden liners, row after row stacked approximately fifteen books high and fifteen books wide. I estimated the island in the area of at least 1000 books and perhaps much more. At close to $30 a book, in a country suffering a major economic crisis, I saw the phenomenon as another reality-defying story that could be added to the incredible Ayn Rand legend.
At Cuspide Libros in up-scale Recoleta Village, a movie complex and plaza of stores and restaurants, Atlas Shrugged was displayed in the best-seller section, copies stacked prominently against the wall.
In fact, if one discounted the socialist-oriented or religious bookstores in Buenos Aires, Atlas Shrugged was prominently displayed in the windows or best-seller sections of most of Buenos Aires' major bookstores.
A Few Months Previous To This, while doing research for my trip to Argentina, I ran across a reference to Ayn Rand from a newspaper in Rosario, Argentina that was beyond a normal smear. It was an intellectual carpet bombing of everything that she was about with not even an attempt to get any of the facts straight. Right out of a Marxist primer text, the article accused her of being a spokesperson for the Talibanes of capitalism--contending that she aimed not to impoverish the working people but to rule them by subjugating them to the power of the dollar.
At that time, I was mystified in trying to understand how Ayn Rand arrived to Rosario, Argentina—the birthplace of Che Guevara—and why the local newspaper would headline an article about her if nobody there who she was. With this in mind, I responded to the feedback part of the paper and wrote them an email. The article had put in quotes attributed to Ayn Rand the part about subjugating the people to the power of the dollar, a quote anyone familiar with Ayn Rand, would know she would never say. In the email, I challenged them to offer proof of her quote and alluded to the New York Times scandal, fresh in memory at that time, of a reporter making up quotes and stories.
A week after I wrote the email, the link to the article disappeared from the internet. The incident dropped from my mind and it wasn’t until I learned that Atlas Shrugged was a best seller in Buenos Aires that the connection was made, and the light bulb of recognition went off. Without a doubt, I realized that the legend of Ayn Rand was imposing itself in the territory of Che Guevara and Juan Domingo Perón.
(2) The Publishers
The entrance of Ayn Rand into the land of Juan Domingo Perón was made possible by new editions of both Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead. The people responsible for all this are Rosa Peltz and her son Fredy Kofman, Argentinians of Buenos Aires, who bought the rights to the Spanish translation several years ago, hired a team of six translators and editors for an entirely new edition, and bought the book to light in August of 2003, after an absence of 40 years in the Spanish-speaking world. (1)
Previous to this, the man responsible for introducing Objectivism to Argentina in the early 1980's was Manfred Schieder, who wrote a series of articles in Argentine newspapers and magazines as well as giving conferences and lectures. Schieder translated The Virtue of Selfishness (La Virtud del Egoismo) into Spanish, which is now available from Grito Sagrado. Presently, Schieder is working on a translation of Introduction To Objectivist Epistemology into Spanish, which will be when finished, a monumental achievement in laying the philosophical groundwork in Spanish for Ayn Rand's novels. Schieder is the author of such articles as "Ayn Rand and the Fences"and "Ayn Rand and the Degradation of Art" which appear in the Spanish speaking world.
Before the Grito Sagrado translations, Atlas Shrugged had been published in Spain by Planeta Publishing and was considered to be a mediocre translation at best with parts of the book missing, suffering from the lingering effects of Franco’s censorship, his stiff Catholic morality and dislike of all things liberal.
As anyone familiar with different languages, the new translation was a monumental undertaking, especially one that aims to capture the tone and spirit of Ayn Rand. I have read sections of the Spanish version of The Fountainhead and found it to be an excellent translation. Ayn Rand’s voice is immediately apparent, the philosophy of individualism jumps out from every page, and the tone and content are solidly in place and reminiscent of the English edition. The prologue by Leonard Peikoff is an excellent translation of the English introduction to the book.
Kofman, an economist who studied under Milton Friedman, first read Atlas Shrugged on the recommendation of one of his teachers, who told Kofman he would love to be in the position of reading Atlas Shrugged again for the first time. Taking the book with him on a plane trip from Denver, Colorado to Amsterdam, Holland, Kofman was totally absorbed and captivated by the book right from the beginning, and knew he couldn’t rest until he finished. He went 30 hours straight, totally focused on his new world, until he finished the book in his hotel in Amsterdam. He describes the experience as mentally and emotionally captivating like "drinking from a fire hose." The experience was so powerful that it changed his life. He relates that from that experience, he judges life from a different viewpoint: the world previous to Atlas Shrugged and the world after reading the book.
Born and raised in Argentina, Kofman thought about the power that a Spanish version would have for a world that vacillates between military dictatorships, collectivist social-justice governments and weak corrupt democracies with no long-range goals or plans but only the immediate pragmatism of public opinion.
Besides Atlas Shrugged, Kofman bought the rights to The Fountainhead and The Virtue of Selfishness. The name of their company is Grito Sagrado, or Sacred Shout.
Atlas Shrugged was published in Buenos Aires in 2003. At a time when financial collapse and political chaos were prevalent and jobs were scarce, Atlas Shrugged made its reappearance in the Spanish-speaking world. The book cost close to $30 American money—87 pesos in Argentine terms that at the old exchange rate would mean 87 dollars. Financially, the book was a long shot. Without a doubt, there is similarity here to The Fountainhead that emerged during the beginning of World War II, a lonely misfit striving to survive during the insanity of a world war.
In 2004, the Spanish-language translation of the The Fountainhead, El Manantial was published and distributed to bookstores in Buenos Aires, and the rest of Latin America. Previous to this, the movie version of the book circulated in Latin America on television and VHS format.
Other than this, and with the exception of those bilingual people who introduced copies of her books in English throughout Latin America, the other major appearance of Ayn Rand in Latin America, previous to the Grito Sagrado publications, was a negative one: the movie version loosely based on Barbara Branden’s book, The Passion of Ayn Rand
Around 2002, when I was travelling throughout Latin America, I noticed that the movie was playing repeatedly on the Hallmark Cable Channel in different countries. Actually, contrary to the movie being based on Barbara Branden’s book, it would be more accurate to say the movie is based on the director, Christopher Menaul’s, doctored view of Barbara Branden’s book. It is an interpretation based on emotional bias, absent a rigorous interpretation of reality-based facts. From the opening where Barbara Branden is supposedly attending Ayn Rand’s funeral, to the middle where Nathaniel Branden finds Frank O’Conner drunk in a phone booth, to the end where she puts the flowers on Ayn Rand’s grave with the New York skyline in the background, the movie is a fictional distortion of Ayn Rand’s life, and a slanderous distortion of Frank O’Connor’s character.
In Latin America, without a corresponding wealth of information about Ayn Rand similar to what one sees in the United States, the movie only served to distort the image of Ayn Rand. While Objectivism was growing in the United States during the sixties and seventies, Ayn Rand was able to counter much of the slander aimed against her by appearing in person and in the electronic media in order to let people know the power and truth of her personality and message. In Latin America, this component is missing. A negative movie that runs with small Spanish subtitles, and is billed as based on her life with her name on the title will only serve to distort her image, especially amongst those who are peripheral viewers. With the sound in English and the fleeting subtitles running across the screen, many Spanish-language viewers will be influenced greatly by the images and the tone of the movie, rather than the real life of Ayn Rand.
In Buenos Aires, I experienced a very strong example of this. Once while talking to a well-educated, professional woman who was helping me with a Spanish translation, I mentioned The Fountainhead in Spanish and asked her if she was familiar with the book and with Ayn Rand. She told me she had heard of Ayn Rand and had seen parts of the movie. She made a slightly disgusted face and said, “Una mujer torcida, verdad?”
The word “torcida” means twisted and perhaps is an apt description of what one sees in the movie. The woman who made the comment was smart, intelligent, efficacious and geared toward a very rational view of the world. Yet, what she saw in the movie and the conclusion she drew from it was a different matter.
But this was not an isolated incident. Other well-educated and intelligent people, unfamiliar with Ayn Rand, have commented in a similar context to the above example. Without a reality-based knowledge of Ayn Rand—without Spanish language translations of her writings or perhaps a Spanish version of the documentary Sense of Life—how would any person be able to make a rational decision of the truth or falsehood of what she was?
Fortunately, Fredy Kofman, many years earlier was hit by the Ayn Rand thunderbolt that changed his life, and now, in Latin America, the monumental power and presence of Ayn Rand is a reality, and millions of readers will be able to see for themselves the power and originality of the author of Atlas Shrugged.
Wednesday, September 13, 2006
Ayn Rand's Influence in Latin America, Part II
(3) The Novels in Argentina
The latest uncensored version of The Fountainhead in Spanish arrived to the bookstores of Buenos Aires, Argentina in 2004. The previous edition of the book was published in Franco’s Spain and was subject to censorship and political machinations, with parts of the book missing. The latest version out of Buenos Aires is a first-class translation. Except for minor structural changes of sentences and the inevitable problems inherent in different languages with certain words, the translation is true to its mark and very much the child of Ayn Rand’s vision of life.
I compared parts of the Spanish translation with the English edition, and consequently, I could find no distortions of meaning, no flights of fancy on the part of the translators, or for that matter any perversion of the spirit of book. For those familiar with language translations, this is a monumental achievement. In my experience, more often than not, distortions of meaning in regard to translations are frequent. This can be ascertained by watching a movie in English and following the Spanish subtitles. Very often, the Spanish version is very different from what is being said or implied in English. More than anything, a good translator has to have knowledge of the spirit and context of the situation and be able to convey that message to the reader in his native language. In my opinion, in the Spanish version of The Fountainhead, this arduous task was achieved with excellent results.
This Spanish edition is in hardback and as of 2005 sells for 87 pesos or $27.00 in dollars. The medium salary in Buenos Aires is from 200 to 500 dollars a month so one can judge the value of the book. As of late 2005, paperback versions of the two novels are available from the publisher for about ten dollars. A hardback copy of The Virtue of Selfishness is also available.
Atlas Shrugged is usually displayed in stores next to its intellectual brother, The Fountainhead. The version in hardback, runs to 1045 pages. Like its American brother, the cover has an illustrated Atlas buckling under the weight of the world. In comparing the two books, Atlas Shrugged, the first book published in Spanish of Ayn Rand in Argentina, has outsold The Fountainhead. In 2004, Atlas Shrugged was on the best-seller lists in Argentina and in Mexico City. The Fountainhead so far has not reached that status. It will be interesting to follow its future in Latin America as to how its history plays out.
I think a great part of the success of Atlas Shrugged in Argentina is due to the similarities of the book to the economic disasters that have taken place in the country since the early thirties. To know the history of Argentina is know the outline of Atlas Shrugged—bank failures, strikes, nationalizations of property, price and wage controls, runaway inflation—and more than anything, a venomous spirit toward economic incentive, opportunity and upward mobility of the individual.
By providing answers to these disasters, Atlas Shrugged provides the vision and perspective to the decay of a nation that was once at the top of the economic scale and is now descending into the darkness of the Third World. Its publication in Buenos Aires coincided with the real-world example of a once-prosperous society crumbling from philosophical and political disaster. While the financial collapse described in Atlas Shrugged is fiction to most people in the United States, in Argentina it is very much a reality, a modern society recovering from the brink of financial collapse, its political system ringed in theft and corruption, its politicians short-sighted and demagogic, avoiding the correct medicine at all costs. Alternating between Marxist economic theories and variants of National Socialism, the country is a textbook example of how to destroy wealth and impoverish an intelligent and hardworking population. This background, I venture to say, is one of the reasons for the immense popularity of Atlas Shrugged in Argentina: a fictional description of Argentine reality with a philosophical answer to the disasters, that until the introduction of Ayn Rand in the culture, have gone without explanation.
Along with this, the people of Buenos Aires are well acquainted with strikes. They occur all the time and from every sector. Organized gangs, supported by the government, block streets and highways and commit acts of violence with impunity. Similar to New York City of the sixties and seventies, when strikes and work stoppages were an every day occurrence, Buenos Aires is a mixture of a world-class civilized society, and a city at the edge of chaos and anarchy.
This is a quote from an Argentinian liberal about the penchant for strikes in the country, and the only strike that has never occurred in Argentina.
“At a time that Argentina finds itself caught between strikes, forced work stoppages, and an escalation of violence without precedence, Atlas Shrugged tells the story of the only strike that never has taken place in Argentina: the strike of those of the mind. The book is about the explicit decision of those persons who produce the wealth--so that later others can claim the right to disperse of it by force--to stop being sacrificial lambs....It would be difficult to find a moment or a place more favorable for this book, than the Argentina of the twenty-first century. The book constitutes an alternative explanation to what one usually hears as the reason for the destruction of the country."
In the case of Argentina, strikes and violent street demonstrations have been a political instrument since the governments of the thirties. The political and economic disasters of Atlas Shrugged are a recurring nightmare that keeps repeating itself without explanation since the days of Peron. A bold and controversial man perhaps from a similar mold as De Gaulle, Perón’s ghost still overshadows Argentine politics. When he was alive, he dominated the government during the forties and early fifties with a strong, charismatic personality, dominant and powerful unions, pleas to sacrifice for Argentina, bold and imaginative symbolism, both anti-capitalist and anti-communist rhetoric, and total control of the economy—a nationalistic style government that sought Argentine economic domination of the marketplace and little foreign competition.
Peron’s legend is distorted in the United States by allegations of fascism and collusion with the Nazis. In contrast to this, he was much more a Latin American caudillo with great charm and charisma, who had a social-justice agenda and a desire for a strong Argentina. He was well-read and educated—a cultured man—who in developing his philosophy of Peronism, borrowed and quoted from the prominent names in philosophical history.
Using the unions as his power base, he sought a "third way" for Argentina, an independent course between capitalism and communism, classical liberalism and totalitarianism. He sought to “Argentinize” the economy, which was basically another word for economic nationalism. Although not totally antagonistic to business, he created an Argentine form of National Socialism with his government controlling most aspects of economic activity—and although allowing an opposition—occasionally imposing a heavy hand in regards to the media and the press. This heavy control of economic activity by the government has followed through to the present day and was witnessed during the collapse of the economy and the economic crisis of 2001.
Once one of the leading economic powers in the world, Argentinians, suddenly, saw themselves drifting into the status of another third-world disaster. They witnessed first hand their bank assets being frozen and their life savings destroyed. The government defaulted on its payments to the IMF, and politicians started to blame foreign banks for their own mistakes. Within weeks, five presidents arrived and exited, and the country saw itself held hostage by unemployed strikers who committed acts of violence with impunity. The new president invited Fidel Castro to his inauguration and refuses to recognize any of his actions as a violation of the right to one’s life. Thus, in a country where many still see Che Guevara and Juan Perón as heroes, the message of Ayn Rand has arrived and captured the vision of those of independent mind and thought, caught in a nightmare world of collectivist propaganda and real-world violence.
In contrast to Atlas Shrugged, with its graphic descriptions of economic decay and the collapse of civilization, The Fountainhead is a much different story to many Latin Americans unfamiliar with the United States. The book offers a very different portrait, and perhaps a strange one to foreign eyes. The story of a man rising up out of humble beginnings—the Horatio Alger legend of going from rags-to-riches by means of one’s talent and ability—is a common story in the United States, but rare in Argentina and other parts of Latin America.
Individualism, while many times not intellectual or not articulated, was an integral part of the history of the United States, ingrained into the culture and taken for granted by the population. The American cowboy culture and the history of the Old West are glaring examples of the “rugged individual” living his own life and doing it his way. Americans of my generation were reared on the individualism of John Wayne, a man with a mind of his own and a vision of how he wanted to live his life. This tradition carried on into the seventies and could be seen in a movie such as Junior Bonner starring Steve McQueen where such rugged individuals as Ida Lupino, Joe Don Baker and Robert Preston, follow their individual vision and their “lone wolf” ethic in the land of “a man has to do what he has to do.” Even the whisky-induced, defiant quasi-individualism of Johnny Paychek, and his “Take This Job and Shove it,” is a markedly American phenomenon alien to most of the other cultures on the planet.
Too many in Latin America, individualism is very much a “gringo” phenomenon to be admired from afar. While Argentina was very much an immigrant nation and filled with tough and hardy gauchos, the philosophical climate of the country was the authoritarian culture of Europe, and the belief in authority over individual autonomy. In this respect and in regard to The Fountainhead, the individualism of Howard Roark would be a very foreign concept, on the one hand inviting and attractive, on the other hand, frightening and alien to what people know and see.
A very graphic illustration of this comes from a article about Ayn Rand and The Fountainhead from a major Argentine newspaper, in which the author described Howard Roark as a "self-made man." Although the article was written in Spanish, "self-made man" was written out in English and placed in italics, which made me suspect that the concept of “self-made man” was alien to the Argentine culture as to much of Latin America, with the possible exception of Mexico where the success of so many Mexicans in United States has oriented people to the concept.
When I inquired around in Argentina about the concept my suspicion proved correct. There is no concept of “self-made man” to match, what in America, is a cultural phenomenon and an everyday occurrence—an inherent part of American culture and history that is taken for granted by most of its inhabitants. Thus, at this stage in its history, individualism to Latin Americans is still a Yankee cultural occurrence to be admired and dreamed about but not yet a reality.
The United States has the Horacio Alger legend, and millions of men and women from humble beginnings rising to positions of importance by ability and talent. Argentina has Juan and Evita Perón, Oscar Bonavena, the boxer, and more recently the great soccer star, Diego Maradona, who wears a tattooed image of Che Guevara on his right bicep and boasts of his great friendship with Fidel Castro.
In Argentina, the concept of the self-made man of independent mind, talent and ability who shapes his world by creation is, at times, as unreachable as the shores of Miami. Thus, with the new copy of The Fountainhead, this alien concept is making its way into the culture. I would venture to say that the radical independence of Roark is a concept that will make a lot of people very curious and uncomfortable at the same time. With this in mind, it is interesting to note that the movie version of The Fountainhead sometimes is billed in Latin America as Uno Contra Todo, or One Against Everybody. From the title one can see that the theme of individualism of the book—so emphasized and valued by Ayn Rand—was altered to give an appearance of a battle of one man against dark, opposing forces. Hence, the theme of the book, individualism, remained the unmentioned missing link to be secretly conceptualized but never mentioned.
In Latin America, the individual pursuit of autonomous values is often pursued as a necessary evil, something that takes place all the time but yet is of questionable moral stature. Like sex in the days of J. Edgar Hoover and Bishop Sheen, it takes place all the time but is never discussed in public. In contrast to the United States, where the opportunity to rise above one’s station is ever-present, in Latin America there is great opposition and hostility to change and innovation. While in America the ambitious are lauded and encouraged, in Latin America they are often met like invading foreigners trying to usurp the land and rights of the powerful and the mighty.
Hence, the history of Howard Roark in Latin America will be another milestone for the writings of Ayn Rand—a vision that perhaps she never foresaw. Perhaps, in Latin America Howard Roark will serve as the renaissance for the latent power and energy of a people who have been restrained for generations by government policies of failure and disaster, all hidden under the mantle of alleviating poverty and providing social justice. While the story of The Fountainhead in the United States is now part of history—its rejection by the elites, its acceptance by the independent individual and its rapid rise to popularity in the culture—in Latin America this scenario will play out once again dictated by the power and strength of Ayn Rand’s legend.
(4) Ayn Rand in Uruguay
A short boat ride from downtown Buenos Aires, across the Rio de Plata, one arrives in Montevideo, Uruguay, a European-type welfare state with a newly elected president from the Socialist Party. The new president is the first official socialist to hold power and consequently arrives to office with almost everything, from mail services, to casinos, to gas stations, already socialized and in the hands of the State. In contrast to Buenos Aires and its bustling energy and sense of life, Montevideo is distinguished by its almost mind-numbing tranquility and the tendency of people to walk around drinking out of canisters, a herb-saturated substance called mate.
Half in the past and partially in the future, one can find modern first-world structures in Montevideo mixed in with third-world passivity and decay. Modern high-rise buildings, casinos and malls share life with drab and dirty government buildings, horse-drawn carts marching down main streets and street kids without family or roof, begging to survive.
Ayn Rand’s novels have also arrived to this highly socialized part of the world.
At the large, fashionable Punta Carretas Mall, a stone-made fortress that was once a prison, one finds all the modern conveniences of the modern world, plus facsimiles of American glamour and elegance. A sleek and fashionable clothes store for women is full of Cosmopolitan Magazine-type girls giggling with bad-girl glee. Right next door is a Beverly Hills-type hair salon, and across from that a store offers custom-made men’s suits.
Around the corner from the clothes store, passing along a corridor of the best in capitalist luxury items, I saw The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged displayed in the bestseller section of a small place called DBD Book Store. Much like a theatrical staging for a play about good versus evil, The Fountainhead was surrounded by enemy forces and had only Atlas Shrugged as an ally. Ayn Rand’s novel about individualism sat on top of a book called, One Year With Schopenhauer. Adjacent to it were two books by Susan Sontag and one by John Kenneth Galbraith. To the rear of them was a book by Gore Vidal. A few spaces away from Atlas Shrugged was a book called, Is Capitalism Moral? by a French author. Sitting at the forefront of the whole heap, and illustrating the deep disparity in intellectual talent and ability of our modern world, were the Spanish translations of the books of smiling Michael Moore.
In seeing books by Sontag, Gore Vidal and John Kenneth Galbraith, I am reminded of the intellectual atmosphere of my youth during the sixties, when the aforementioned dominated the New York intellectual world. At that time, being very much a babe-in-the-intellectual woods, I fell victim to the power of the media, and the gigantic hoax perpetrated by the intellectual establishment. After all, who was I to doubt the intellectual wisdom of the New York intellectual establishment if they hailed Sontag, Vidal and Galbraith as the apex of intellectual wisdom and thought? To doubt the wisdom of these thinkers for a young and inexperienced "nothing" was arrogant heresy, and of course, not a wise course if one aspired to play in the New York arena. Fortunately, Ayn Rand’s writings came to the rescue and saved me from falling deeper and deeper into this loaded dice game of intellectual self-annihilation.
No doubt the sight of these books gave hint to a slight time warp between American and Uruguayan culture. The fact that Ayn Rand is just entering their lives gives hint to the dimension of difference.
Not surprisingly in a country with a top-heavy government structure controlling every aspect of the economy and very high tariffs, The Fountainhead sold for $60 in Montevideo, $30 more than in Buenos Aires. Atlas Shrugged sold for $50. When I inquired about the two books, one of the employees told me Atlas Shrugged was popular, and given the price had sold very well.
Uruguay is probably the flag-ship, welfare state in Latin America populated by families of Spanish and Italian immigrants. At one time, one of the most prosperous countries of Latin America, it has been sliding into collapse for many years. It stands to point out that the physical and economic collapse are based on philosophical corruptions. Montevideo is a hotbed of Marxist economic theories and the home of Eduardo Galeano who wrote the best-selling book, Open Veins of Latin America. The thesis of this book is that United States through imperialistic capitalism robs and pillages Latin America. Or, "They are rich because we are poor." Galeano was a big supporter of Castro’s Cuban experiment in Marxism. His book is a standard text in many of Latin America’s universities and is noticeable in prominent sections of big-city bookstores.
The new socialist president was elected with the promise to rectify the physical and economic collapse. Ironically, with his arrival, there is almost nothing left to socialize. From casinos to health care, almost everything is either owned or partnered by the government. Investment is weak, construction stagnated, and I am told the young people, between 22 and 35, leave for greener pastures as does almost everyone with a skill or a profession. For example, the professional schools in Uruguay are without cost to the student. If admitted, one can go to medical, engineering, or architectural school while living at home, get one's degree and then flee to Chile, U.S., or Spain to live one's life.
Into this twisted mélange, Ayn Rand’s novels have arrived as lonely warriors in another intellectual battle. In a world where the standard of knowledge is often the wisdom of the "people" and where reality is seen as a social construct determined by a judicious use of language, the books will be much-needed additions to the intellectual battle.
Like Argentina, Atlas Shrugged in Uruguay, with its portrayal of the descent of a civilization into moral and financial collapse, strikes an immediate chord with educated people and they have no trouble identifying with the examples from their personal lives. The fact that Ayn Rand is providing answers to disasters previously labeled as unanswerable makes Atlas Shrugged a very attractive book at any price. Like with all the other countries in Latin America, the publication of these novels in Spanish have finally thrown down the gauntlet—the lines are now drawn and a true alternative to Marxism has finally appeared on the horizon.
(5) Bestseller History
In the short time they have been available, the history in regard to Ayn Rand’s novels in Latin America is very impressive. Then, too, the release of The Virtue of Selfishness in Spanish translation and the influence this book will have on Latin American thinking will be an exciting development. Previously, one saw the morality of self-sacrifice from Catholicism and Marxism, and a steady progression of collectivist regimes offering closed societies as an answer to life. Now, for the first time with the publication of this translation, there will be a rational alternative to the morality of self-sacrifice and service to others.
In Argentina, the rise to the top of Atlas Shrugged was a cultural phenomenon. In reading La Nacion one of the main daily newspapers out of Buenos Aires, one can witness the introduction of the book into the culture. Here one can see a former president falling in love with the book as well as professionals and other independent people singing its praises. During the fall and winter of 2004 and into 2005, it was on the best-seller lists of many bookstores and until this date can still be seen in most of the stores and even on display in some of the store windows. (March 2006).
In Mexico, a similar story was taking place. According to the Mexican newspaper, El Universal, Atlas Shrugged was the number one bestseller in the country during the last week of March, 2004 replacing The Code of DaVinci for the top spot, and by the middle of May of the same year was sitting in ninth position. (1)
From Venezuela, we learn that in the beginning of September of 2005, The Fountainhead was the number one best seller in that country and by the end of the month was sitting in the fifth position on the list. (2)
In addition to the best-seller status of her novels, one finds that many of the bookstore chains in Argentina and the Spanish-speaking world have written excellent reviews of Ayn Rand’s novels. Unlike many of the reviews in the English-speaking world that have sought to evade the issues of individualism and collectivism, most all of the reviews in Spanish state the issues very clearly. For example, the review of The Fountainhead that appears on Amazon.com states that the book is about Howard Roark and his "struggles in the face of his successful rival, Peter Keating, and the newspaper columnist, Ellsworth Toohey." It goes on to say, "The book addresses a number of universal themes: the strength of the individual, the tug between good and evil, the threat of fascism."
Notice that this review fails to mention individualism or what type of struggle Roark endures, or for that matter what type of strength he has as an individual. The all-encompassing word fascism is used to sketch in dark forces, but anyone familiar with the book knows that Ayn Rand was referring to all collectivist societies in describing Roark’s fight against public opinion, and the attempt to sacrifice individual ability to democratic equality.
Compare this Amazon review with one that appears on the website of Mauro Books, a book chain that operates out of Buenos Aires. "Ayn Rand is a phenomenon without precedent in modern literature. Like her heroes, she alone faced the collectivist doctrines and became the most outstanding defender of liberty and individualism."
The review goes on to add that: "The Fountainhead since its appearance, has become a world-wide best seller. The ideas and proposals of the author have changed the lives of millions of readers."
The review ends with a quote from the writer Alvaro Vargas Llosa, a quote that appears on the jacket of the Spanish-language translation of the book. Vargas Llosa states that Rand "revolutionized the idea that Americans had of themselves. She, as an immigrant, reminded Americans that the country was founded on the basis of individualism and she moved them to return to these roots under penalty of losing themselves through self-sacrifice."(3)
Another excellent review about Atlas Shrugged comes from Cuspide Libros, a large bookstore chain also operating out of Buenos Aires. The review states that with Atlas Shrugged, "Ayn Rand found the perfect artistic form to express her conception of existence. The book made her, not only one of the most well-known novelists, but one of the most influential thinkers of the twentieth century. In effect, the philosophy of Objectivism which she created and which appears in other books and essays, has won over readers in all parts of the world." (4)
A Spanish-language bookstore in Weston, Florida called, Board's Libros, has a photo of The Fountainhead on its opening page on the internet, accompanied by an excellent short review of Ayn Rand's life. Starting with Ayn Rand’s quote about each man being an end in himself, the review contains a short biography of The Fountainhead’s history and a summary of Ayn Rand’s non-fiction work. "In these (her non-fiction books), as in her works of fiction, she was defining her philosophy called Objectivism, based on the affirmation of reason as the fundamental of knowledge." It goes on to state that her philosophy is called Objectivism and is based on the affirmation that reason is the fundamental core of knowledge and that she offered a radical defense of rational egoism, opposed to any type of altruism. (5)
The latest uncensored version of The Fountainhead in Spanish arrived to the bookstores of Buenos Aires, Argentina in 2004. The previous edition of the book was published in Franco’s Spain and was subject to censorship and political machinations, with parts of the book missing. The latest version out of Buenos Aires is a first-class translation. Except for minor structural changes of sentences and the inevitable problems inherent in different languages with certain words, the translation is true to its mark and very much the child of Ayn Rand’s vision of life.
I compared parts of the Spanish translation with the English edition, and consequently, I could find no distortions of meaning, no flights of fancy on the part of the translators, or for that matter any perversion of the spirit of book. For those familiar with language translations, this is a monumental achievement. In my experience, more often than not, distortions of meaning in regard to translations are frequent. This can be ascertained by watching a movie in English and following the Spanish subtitles. Very often, the Spanish version is very different from what is being said or implied in English. More than anything, a good translator has to have knowledge of the spirit and context of the situation and be able to convey that message to the reader in his native language. In my opinion, in the Spanish version of The Fountainhead, this arduous task was achieved with excellent results.
This Spanish edition is in hardback and as of 2005 sells for 87 pesos or $27.00 in dollars. The medium salary in Buenos Aires is from 200 to 500 dollars a month so one can judge the value of the book. As of late 2005, paperback versions of the two novels are available from the publisher for about ten dollars. A hardback copy of The Virtue of Selfishness is also available.
Atlas Shrugged is usually displayed in stores next to its intellectual brother, The Fountainhead. The version in hardback, runs to 1045 pages. Like its American brother, the cover has an illustrated Atlas buckling under the weight of the world. In comparing the two books, Atlas Shrugged, the first book published in Spanish of Ayn Rand in Argentina, has outsold The Fountainhead. In 2004, Atlas Shrugged was on the best-seller lists in Argentina and in Mexico City. The Fountainhead so far has not reached that status. It will be interesting to follow its future in Latin America as to how its history plays out.
I think a great part of the success of Atlas Shrugged in Argentina is due to the similarities of the book to the economic disasters that have taken place in the country since the early thirties. To know the history of Argentina is know the outline of Atlas Shrugged—bank failures, strikes, nationalizations of property, price and wage controls, runaway inflation—and more than anything, a venomous spirit toward economic incentive, opportunity and upward mobility of the individual.
By providing answers to these disasters, Atlas Shrugged provides the vision and perspective to the decay of a nation that was once at the top of the economic scale and is now descending into the darkness of the Third World. Its publication in Buenos Aires coincided with the real-world example of a once-prosperous society crumbling from philosophical and political disaster. While the financial collapse described in Atlas Shrugged is fiction to most people in the United States, in Argentina it is very much a reality, a modern society recovering from the brink of financial collapse, its political system ringed in theft and corruption, its politicians short-sighted and demagogic, avoiding the correct medicine at all costs. Alternating between Marxist economic theories and variants of National Socialism, the country is a textbook example of how to destroy wealth and impoverish an intelligent and hardworking population. This background, I venture to say, is one of the reasons for the immense popularity of Atlas Shrugged in Argentina: a fictional description of Argentine reality with a philosophical answer to the disasters, that until the introduction of Ayn Rand in the culture, have gone without explanation.
Along with this, the people of Buenos Aires are well acquainted with strikes. They occur all the time and from every sector. Organized gangs, supported by the government, block streets and highways and commit acts of violence with impunity. Similar to New York City of the sixties and seventies, when strikes and work stoppages were an every day occurrence, Buenos Aires is a mixture of a world-class civilized society, and a city at the edge of chaos and anarchy.
This is a quote from an Argentinian liberal about the penchant for strikes in the country, and the only strike that has never occurred in Argentina.
“At a time that Argentina finds itself caught between strikes, forced work stoppages, and an escalation of violence without precedence, Atlas Shrugged tells the story of the only strike that never has taken place in Argentina: the strike of those of the mind. The book is about the explicit decision of those persons who produce the wealth--so that later others can claim the right to disperse of it by force--to stop being sacrificial lambs....It would be difficult to find a moment or a place more favorable for this book, than the Argentina of the twenty-first century. The book constitutes an alternative explanation to what one usually hears as the reason for the destruction of the country."
In the case of Argentina, strikes and violent street demonstrations have been a political instrument since the governments of the thirties. The political and economic disasters of Atlas Shrugged are a recurring nightmare that keeps repeating itself without explanation since the days of Peron. A bold and controversial man perhaps from a similar mold as De Gaulle, Perón’s ghost still overshadows Argentine politics. When he was alive, he dominated the government during the forties and early fifties with a strong, charismatic personality, dominant and powerful unions, pleas to sacrifice for Argentina, bold and imaginative symbolism, both anti-capitalist and anti-communist rhetoric, and total control of the economy—a nationalistic style government that sought Argentine economic domination of the marketplace and little foreign competition.
Peron’s legend is distorted in the United States by allegations of fascism and collusion with the Nazis. In contrast to this, he was much more a Latin American caudillo with great charm and charisma, who had a social-justice agenda and a desire for a strong Argentina. He was well-read and educated—a cultured man—who in developing his philosophy of Peronism, borrowed and quoted from the prominent names in philosophical history.
Using the unions as his power base, he sought a "third way" for Argentina, an independent course between capitalism and communism, classical liberalism and totalitarianism. He sought to “Argentinize” the economy, which was basically another word for economic nationalism. Although not totally antagonistic to business, he created an Argentine form of National Socialism with his government controlling most aspects of economic activity—and although allowing an opposition—occasionally imposing a heavy hand in regards to the media and the press. This heavy control of economic activity by the government has followed through to the present day and was witnessed during the collapse of the economy and the economic crisis of 2001.
Once one of the leading economic powers in the world, Argentinians, suddenly, saw themselves drifting into the status of another third-world disaster. They witnessed first hand their bank assets being frozen and their life savings destroyed. The government defaulted on its payments to the IMF, and politicians started to blame foreign banks for their own mistakes. Within weeks, five presidents arrived and exited, and the country saw itself held hostage by unemployed strikers who committed acts of violence with impunity. The new president invited Fidel Castro to his inauguration and refuses to recognize any of his actions as a violation of the right to one’s life. Thus, in a country where many still see Che Guevara and Juan Perón as heroes, the message of Ayn Rand has arrived and captured the vision of those of independent mind and thought, caught in a nightmare world of collectivist propaganda and real-world violence.
In contrast to Atlas Shrugged, with its graphic descriptions of economic decay and the collapse of civilization, The Fountainhead is a much different story to many Latin Americans unfamiliar with the United States. The book offers a very different portrait, and perhaps a strange one to foreign eyes. The story of a man rising up out of humble beginnings—the Horatio Alger legend of going from rags-to-riches by means of one’s talent and ability—is a common story in the United States, but rare in Argentina and other parts of Latin America.
Individualism, while many times not intellectual or not articulated, was an integral part of the history of the United States, ingrained into the culture and taken for granted by the population. The American cowboy culture and the history of the Old West are glaring examples of the “rugged individual” living his own life and doing it his way. Americans of my generation were reared on the individualism of John Wayne, a man with a mind of his own and a vision of how he wanted to live his life. This tradition carried on into the seventies and could be seen in a movie such as Junior Bonner starring Steve McQueen where such rugged individuals as Ida Lupino, Joe Don Baker and Robert Preston, follow their individual vision and their “lone wolf” ethic in the land of “a man has to do what he has to do.” Even the whisky-induced, defiant quasi-individualism of Johnny Paychek, and his “Take This Job and Shove it,” is a markedly American phenomenon alien to most of the other cultures on the planet.
Too many in Latin America, individualism is very much a “gringo” phenomenon to be admired from afar. While Argentina was very much an immigrant nation and filled with tough and hardy gauchos, the philosophical climate of the country was the authoritarian culture of Europe, and the belief in authority over individual autonomy. In this respect and in regard to The Fountainhead, the individualism of Howard Roark would be a very foreign concept, on the one hand inviting and attractive, on the other hand, frightening and alien to what people know and see.
A very graphic illustration of this comes from a article about Ayn Rand and The Fountainhead from a major Argentine newspaper, in which the author described Howard Roark as a "self-made man." Although the article was written in Spanish, "self-made man" was written out in English and placed in italics, which made me suspect that the concept of “self-made man” was alien to the Argentine culture as to much of Latin America, with the possible exception of Mexico where the success of so many Mexicans in United States has oriented people to the concept.
When I inquired around in Argentina about the concept my suspicion proved correct. There is no concept of “self-made man” to match, what in America, is a cultural phenomenon and an everyday occurrence—an inherent part of American culture and history that is taken for granted by most of its inhabitants. Thus, at this stage in its history, individualism to Latin Americans is still a Yankee cultural occurrence to be admired and dreamed about but not yet a reality.
The United States has the Horacio Alger legend, and millions of men and women from humble beginnings rising to positions of importance by ability and talent. Argentina has Juan and Evita Perón, Oscar Bonavena, the boxer, and more recently the great soccer star, Diego Maradona, who wears a tattooed image of Che Guevara on his right bicep and boasts of his great friendship with Fidel Castro.
In Argentina, the concept of the self-made man of independent mind, talent and ability who shapes his world by creation is, at times, as unreachable as the shores of Miami. Thus, with the new copy of The Fountainhead, this alien concept is making its way into the culture. I would venture to say that the radical independence of Roark is a concept that will make a lot of people very curious and uncomfortable at the same time. With this in mind, it is interesting to note that the movie version of The Fountainhead sometimes is billed in Latin America as Uno Contra Todo, or One Against Everybody. From the title one can see that the theme of individualism of the book—so emphasized and valued by Ayn Rand—was altered to give an appearance of a battle of one man against dark, opposing forces. Hence, the theme of the book, individualism, remained the unmentioned missing link to be secretly conceptualized but never mentioned.
In Latin America, the individual pursuit of autonomous values is often pursued as a necessary evil, something that takes place all the time but yet is of questionable moral stature. Like sex in the days of J. Edgar Hoover and Bishop Sheen, it takes place all the time but is never discussed in public. In contrast to the United States, where the opportunity to rise above one’s station is ever-present, in Latin America there is great opposition and hostility to change and innovation. While in America the ambitious are lauded and encouraged, in Latin America they are often met like invading foreigners trying to usurp the land and rights of the powerful and the mighty.
Hence, the history of Howard Roark in Latin America will be another milestone for the writings of Ayn Rand—a vision that perhaps she never foresaw. Perhaps, in Latin America Howard Roark will serve as the renaissance for the latent power and energy of a people who have been restrained for generations by government policies of failure and disaster, all hidden under the mantle of alleviating poverty and providing social justice. While the story of The Fountainhead in the United States is now part of history—its rejection by the elites, its acceptance by the independent individual and its rapid rise to popularity in the culture—in Latin America this scenario will play out once again dictated by the power and strength of Ayn Rand’s legend.
(4) Ayn Rand in Uruguay
A short boat ride from downtown Buenos Aires, across the Rio de Plata, one arrives in Montevideo, Uruguay, a European-type welfare state with a newly elected president from the Socialist Party. The new president is the first official socialist to hold power and consequently arrives to office with almost everything, from mail services, to casinos, to gas stations, already socialized and in the hands of the State. In contrast to Buenos Aires and its bustling energy and sense of life, Montevideo is distinguished by its almost mind-numbing tranquility and the tendency of people to walk around drinking out of canisters, a herb-saturated substance called mate.
Half in the past and partially in the future, one can find modern first-world structures in Montevideo mixed in with third-world passivity and decay. Modern high-rise buildings, casinos and malls share life with drab and dirty government buildings, horse-drawn carts marching down main streets and street kids without family or roof, begging to survive.
Ayn Rand’s novels have also arrived to this highly socialized part of the world.
At the large, fashionable Punta Carretas Mall, a stone-made fortress that was once a prison, one finds all the modern conveniences of the modern world, plus facsimiles of American glamour and elegance. A sleek and fashionable clothes store for women is full of Cosmopolitan Magazine-type girls giggling with bad-girl glee. Right next door is a Beverly Hills-type hair salon, and across from that a store offers custom-made men’s suits.
Around the corner from the clothes store, passing along a corridor of the best in capitalist luxury items, I saw The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged displayed in the bestseller section of a small place called DBD Book Store. Much like a theatrical staging for a play about good versus evil, The Fountainhead was surrounded by enemy forces and had only Atlas Shrugged as an ally. Ayn Rand’s novel about individualism sat on top of a book called, One Year With Schopenhauer. Adjacent to it were two books by Susan Sontag and one by John Kenneth Galbraith. To the rear of them was a book by Gore Vidal. A few spaces away from Atlas Shrugged was a book called, Is Capitalism Moral? by a French author. Sitting at the forefront of the whole heap, and illustrating the deep disparity in intellectual talent and ability of our modern world, were the Spanish translations of the books of smiling Michael Moore.
In seeing books by Sontag, Gore Vidal and John Kenneth Galbraith, I am reminded of the intellectual atmosphere of my youth during the sixties, when the aforementioned dominated the New York intellectual world. At that time, being very much a babe-in-the-intellectual woods, I fell victim to the power of the media, and the gigantic hoax perpetrated by the intellectual establishment. After all, who was I to doubt the intellectual wisdom of the New York intellectual establishment if they hailed Sontag, Vidal and Galbraith as the apex of intellectual wisdom and thought? To doubt the wisdom of these thinkers for a young and inexperienced "nothing" was arrogant heresy, and of course, not a wise course if one aspired to play in the New York arena. Fortunately, Ayn Rand’s writings came to the rescue and saved me from falling deeper and deeper into this loaded dice game of intellectual self-annihilation.
No doubt the sight of these books gave hint to a slight time warp between American and Uruguayan culture. The fact that Ayn Rand is just entering their lives gives hint to the dimension of difference.
Not surprisingly in a country with a top-heavy government structure controlling every aspect of the economy and very high tariffs, The Fountainhead sold for $60 in Montevideo, $30 more than in Buenos Aires. Atlas Shrugged sold for $50. When I inquired about the two books, one of the employees told me Atlas Shrugged was popular, and given the price had sold very well.
Uruguay is probably the flag-ship, welfare state in Latin America populated by families of Spanish and Italian immigrants. At one time, one of the most prosperous countries of Latin America, it has been sliding into collapse for many years. It stands to point out that the physical and economic collapse are based on philosophical corruptions. Montevideo is a hotbed of Marxist economic theories and the home of Eduardo Galeano who wrote the best-selling book, Open Veins of Latin America. The thesis of this book is that United States through imperialistic capitalism robs and pillages Latin America. Or, "They are rich because we are poor." Galeano was a big supporter of Castro’s Cuban experiment in Marxism. His book is a standard text in many of Latin America’s universities and is noticeable in prominent sections of big-city bookstores.
The new socialist president was elected with the promise to rectify the physical and economic collapse. Ironically, with his arrival, there is almost nothing left to socialize. From casinos to health care, almost everything is either owned or partnered by the government. Investment is weak, construction stagnated, and I am told the young people, between 22 and 35, leave for greener pastures as does almost everyone with a skill or a profession. For example, the professional schools in Uruguay are without cost to the student. If admitted, one can go to medical, engineering, or architectural school while living at home, get one's degree and then flee to Chile, U.S., or Spain to live one's life.
Into this twisted mélange, Ayn Rand’s novels have arrived as lonely warriors in another intellectual battle. In a world where the standard of knowledge is often the wisdom of the "people" and where reality is seen as a social construct determined by a judicious use of language, the books will be much-needed additions to the intellectual battle.
Like Argentina, Atlas Shrugged in Uruguay, with its portrayal of the descent of a civilization into moral and financial collapse, strikes an immediate chord with educated people and they have no trouble identifying with the examples from their personal lives. The fact that Ayn Rand is providing answers to disasters previously labeled as unanswerable makes Atlas Shrugged a very attractive book at any price. Like with all the other countries in Latin America, the publication of these novels in Spanish have finally thrown down the gauntlet—the lines are now drawn and a true alternative to Marxism has finally appeared on the horizon.
(5) Bestseller History
In the short time they have been available, the history in regard to Ayn Rand’s novels in Latin America is very impressive. Then, too, the release of The Virtue of Selfishness in Spanish translation and the influence this book will have on Latin American thinking will be an exciting development. Previously, one saw the morality of self-sacrifice from Catholicism and Marxism, and a steady progression of collectivist regimes offering closed societies as an answer to life. Now, for the first time with the publication of this translation, there will be a rational alternative to the morality of self-sacrifice and service to others.
In Argentina, the rise to the top of Atlas Shrugged was a cultural phenomenon. In reading La Nacion one of the main daily newspapers out of Buenos Aires, one can witness the introduction of the book into the culture. Here one can see a former president falling in love with the book as well as professionals and other independent people singing its praises. During the fall and winter of 2004 and into 2005, it was on the best-seller lists of many bookstores and until this date can still be seen in most of the stores and even on display in some of the store windows. (March 2006).
In Mexico, a similar story was taking place. According to the Mexican newspaper, El Universal, Atlas Shrugged was the number one bestseller in the country during the last week of March, 2004 replacing The Code of DaVinci for the top spot, and by the middle of May of the same year was sitting in ninth position. (1)
From Venezuela, we learn that in the beginning of September of 2005, The Fountainhead was the number one best seller in that country and by the end of the month was sitting in the fifth position on the list. (2)
In addition to the best-seller status of her novels, one finds that many of the bookstore chains in Argentina and the Spanish-speaking world have written excellent reviews of Ayn Rand’s novels. Unlike many of the reviews in the English-speaking world that have sought to evade the issues of individualism and collectivism, most all of the reviews in Spanish state the issues very clearly. For example, the review of The Fountainhead that appears on Amazon.com states that the book is about Howard Roark and his "struggles in the face of his successful rival, Peter Keating, and the newspaper columnist, Ellsworth Toohey." It goes on to say, "The book addresses a number of universal themes: the strength of the individual, the tug between good and evil, the threat of fascism."
Notice that this review fails to mention individualism or what type of struggle Roark endures, or for that matter what type of strength he has as an individual. The all-encompassing word fascism is used to sketch in dark forces, but anyone familiar with the book knows that Ayn Rand was referring to all collectivist societies in describing Roark’s fight against public opinion, and the attempt to sacrifice individual ability to democratic equality.
Compare this Amazon review with one that appears on the website of Mauro Books, a book chain that operates out of Buenos Aires. "Ayn Rand is a phenomenon without precedent in modern literature. Like her heroes, she alone faced the collectivist doctrines and became the most outstanding defender of liberty and individualism."
The review goes on to add that: "The Fountainhead since its appearance, has become a world-wide best seller. The ideas and proposals of the author have changed the lives of millions of readers."
The review ends with a quote from the writer Alvaro Vargas Llosa, a quote that appears on the jacket of the Spanish-language translation of the book. Vargas Llosa states that Rand "revolutionized the idea that Americans had of themselves. She, as an immigrant, reminded Americans that the country was founded on the basis of individualism and she moved them to return to these roots under penalty of losing themselves through self-sacrifice."(3)
Another excellent review about Atlas Shrugged comes from Cuspide Libros, a large bookstore chain also operating out of Buenos Aires. The review states that with Atlas Shrugged, "Ayn Rand found the perfect artistic form to express her conception of existence. The book made her, not only one of the most well-known novelists, but one of the most influential thinkers of the twentieth century. In effect, the philosophy of Objectivism which she created and which appears in other books and essays, has won over readers in all parts of the world." (4)
A Spanish-language bookstore in Weston, Florida called, Board's Libros, has a photo of The Fountainhead on its opening page on the internet, accompanied by an excellent short review of Ayn Rand's life. Starting with Ayn Rand’s quote about each man being an end in himself, the review contains a short biography of The Fountainhead’s history and a summary of Ayn Rand’s non-fiction work. "In these (her non-fiction books), as in her works of fiction, she was defining her philosophy called Objectivism, based on the affirmation of reason as the fundamental of knowledge." It goes on to state that her philosophy is called Objectivism and is based on the affirmation that reason is the fundamental core of knowledge and that she offered a radical defense of rational egoism, opposed to any type of altruism. (5)
Tuesday, September 12, 2006
Ayn Rand's Influence in Latin Amerca, Part III
(6) Ayn Rand’s Ascendancy in Latin America
Notable personalities in Latin America have discovered the power of Ayn Rand. Two prominent writers in the Spanish-speaking world, Carlos Alberto Montaner and Alvaro Vargas Llosa have written introductions to The Fountainhead that appears on the cover of the Spanish edition.
Both men are former leftists who now are active in liberal organizations. Montaner is an internationally syndicated columnist and author, and Vargas Llosa is a writer and the son of Mario Vargas Llosa, the best-selling author whose many books are translated into English. The two men have authored a book called The Perfect Latin American Idiot, detailing the disastrous state-managed policies of Latin American governments and some of the disastrous thinking that support these policies.
Vargas Llosa, in his introduction to The Fountainhead, states that Ayn Rand, "an immigrant with a heavy accent, revolutionized the idea Americans have of themselves and reminds them that their country was founded on the moral base of individualism. She exhorts them to return to these roots under penalty of self-abnegation."
Montaner writes that The Fountainhead, "is one of the rare examples of a good novel based on liberal ideas, and that Howard Roark, a brilliant architect is ready to risk all to defend individual liberty." He goes on to say that Ayn Rand dedicated her intense and profound life to combating collectivism in any form and that novels with an ethical content are rare, and that The Fountainhead is the best example that he knows.
Another outstanding example, in addition to Vargas Llosa and Montaner, is the Peruvian author and television personality, Jaime Bayly, who in his book, Amigos que Perdí, mentions the “healthy egoism of Ayn Rand.” (1)
Interestingly, in La Nacion one of the major newspapers of Argentina, we find an article about Carlos Saúl Menen the ex-president of Argenitina, discovering Atlas Shrugged while he was in exile in Chile. According to the author of the article, Menen is a great admirer of the book and was recommending it to anyone who would listen. On his website, Menen mentions, in a piece to his fellow Peronists, that problems should be resolved, using the “serene and objective explanation of the facts, always to the light of the clear thinking of Alice Ayn Rand.”(2)
Unlike most journalistic articles about Ayn Rand that I have read, the author seems to know the subject about which she writes. She gives us a short background of Ayn Rand's life and then describes her as the founder of Objectivism. This is how she explains Objectivism in her very favorable article. "Objectivism expounds the existence of an objective reality that one can know by means of reason, proposes the ethic of self-interest and recommends the system of laissez-faire capitalism."
Another article that appeared in La Nacion in 2004, illustrates the growing popularity of Ayn Rand by the fact that there is no profound discussion of who she is. In the article called “The Myth of the Cowboy in the White House” the author, Mario Diament, talks about the Hollywood image of the cowboy: of the white American, alone and individualistic facing the forces of evil and that the morality of these pictures is usually that the cowboy must take responsibility no matter the circumstances. The author then states this is the same thing that Ayn Rand seeks, “the high priestess of capitalism, whose novels The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged contributed to define American morality in the decade of the fifties.”(3)
During its book fair, The University of Cema in Buenos Aires featured Ayn Rand’s main novels and had a scheduled reading open to the public.
From México, we learn that Atlas Shrugged sells at Liberías Gandhi for $30, and The Fountainhead for the same price. An article on the internet news site Terra.com relates that finally the rock group Rush is coming to Mexico, and that one of their most popular songs was based on Ayn Rand’s book, Anthem.
In an article in one of the principle newspapers, El Universal, about Alan Greenspan, the author states that few people know that he was a great friend of Objectivism and its author Ayn Rand. According to the article Ayn Rand considered him a disciple and an intellectual heir.(4)
In a major article from a magazine about economics, after the death of an ex-Mexican president involved in a bank nationalization, Roberto Salinas León, director of politics and economics at TV Azteca, quotes extensively from Atlas Shrugged about the meaning of money and its importance to a rational society. (5)
From El Diario de Yucatán, Ayn Rand is quoted as saying that “the person that would sell their soul for a few pennies is usually the one that proclaims in a loud voice that he hates money.” (6)
From one of the main newspapers out of Santiago, Chile, La Tercera, the actress, María José Prieto, when asked what book she should never lack in her personal library, answered, “The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand and The Art of Happiness by the Dalai Lama.” (7)
Being the mother country and one of the focal points of Latin culture, the media in Spain have been up to date in recognizing the increasing popularity of Ayn Rand in the Spanish-speaking world.
In a September 2002 article in the Spanish magazine, Libertad Digital, the Spanish author, Alicia Delibes, writes a convincing and interesting article about the “Individualism of Ayn Rand.” (8)
In an article from La Voz de Galicia, a daily published in Galicia, Spain, Ayn Rand is mentioned in context with Alan Greenspan and the appointment of his successor. Talking about Greenspan, the article states that now, “He would have more time to involve himself in the philosophy of Objectivism, which is about the benefits of individualism and rational egoism, whose creator, Ayn Rand, was his friend and mentor.” (9)
Notice here, like in many other articles I have read from Latin America, the journalist aims for clarity by using the modifier “rational” in front of egoist or egoism so as to distinguish Ayn Rand’s view from other views of egoism.
Also from Spain, the Diario Vasco, mentions Ayn Rand in regards to a meeting with the author Tobias Wolfe. Here again, no information is given and the article assumes the fame and notoriety of Ayn Rand.
A major article from El Mundo in Spain about Frank Lloyd Wright mentions Ayn Rand and states that Wright’s life inspired the The Fountainhead—a major success in book sales that was made into a movie. According to the article Howard Roark “was a genius who went against the current, a self-destructive architect disposed to dynamite his own buildings rather than surrender his convictions.” (10)
From Costa Rica, one learns that Otto Guevara, the imposing Libertarian candidate for president, when quizzed by the newspaper, La Republica about his favorite author and novel, named Ayn Rand and Atlas Shrugged. (11)
In an article from a Venezuelan newspaper called, “Who Works Doesn’t Eat Straw” Ayn Rand is quoted at the end of the article stating the wealth of the United States was not created by sacrifices to the common good, but by productive men seeking their own self-interest. The author compares this with the collectivist intention of promising food by making one a prisoner of socialist ideology. All of this is in context of the “socialist” revolution taking place in Venezuela, and the attempt by Hugo Chávez to do this under the banner of social justice. (12)
In Guatemala, a conference sponsored by Ricardo Rojas looks for the connection between Ayn Rand and Kart Popper, and if any is to be found. (13)
Luis Figueroa, a writer from Guatemala who writes a column on Saturdays in the paper, La Prensa, did a piece called “Ayn Rand and Individualism” that was published in March de 1987. In the article he describes Ayn Rand as one of the most notable defenders of individualism and then describes the basics of Objectivism.
On the shabby side of journalism in the Spanish-speaking world, we learn that Gary Cooper fell in love with Ayn Rand and convinced her to go to Hollywood, that Dominique Francon was a believer in patience and tolerance, that Howard Roark is definitely based on the life of Frank Lloyd Wright, and that Nathaniel Branden was married to Barbara Feldon.
A web magazine out of Argentina called Mercado seems to have Ayn Rand confused with L. Ron Hubbard and Scientology, alluding to both of them together as if they were the same entity, and mentioning her in connection with Robert Atkins, the best-selling diet doctor.
The increasing influence of Ayn Rand in Latin America becomes apparent in several articles published in Pagina 12, a left-wing daily out of Buenos Aires that is sympathetic to the socialism of Fidel Castro and Hugo Chávez. Although political in nature in covering the news and socialist in its slant, the paper also reports extensively on cultural affairs: movies, books and famous people in the news. It is a prominent daily and strives to maintain an aura of objective reporting.
Remarkably, the paper published a movie review of The Passion of Ayn Rand, the movie directed by Christopher Menaul and enthusiastically praised by Barbara Branden. The reviewer seems to accept the movie as fact and repeats Menaul’s version of Ayn Rand's life as if it was factually based. One positive note in the article was that the reviewer openly states that Ayn Rand, "embraced capitalism, and defended the right of the individual to be egoistic." Amazingly, at the end of the article it even offers a statement by Leonard Peikoff that the Branden’s view, one which the movie is based on, is extremely partial. (14)
In March of 2002, the paper published a major article about Ayn Rand accompanied by six photos of Rand taken by Andy Warhol. The article offered no footnotes in regard to where the author obtained his knowledge of Ayn Rand, but I could see that he was influenced by accounts by Barbara Branden and Murray Rothbard, repeating the typewriter story, and Rothbard's charges of a Stalinist-like cult of dogma and authoritarianism. (15)
While far from complimentary in his story, the author Pablo Capanna, like many people on the left in Latin America, is not reluctant to spell out the issues, and openly mentions Ayn Rand’s support of egoism and individualism, and her opposition to altruism. Along with this, he refers to her radical egoism and quotes her as saying "the root of all bad things stems from altruism because it subverts values and puts personal benefit below the general interest or welfare."
Relative to what I have seen in the United States over the years, especially from William F. Buckley’s National Review, this review from a left-wing daily, at least, stated openly the fundamentals of Objectivism.
In a lighter moment, the author compares Galt's speech at the end of Atlas Shrugged with the long-winded discourses of "Fidel." Apparently, he is aware of the power of Ayn Rand, and her challenge to the prevailing icons of altruism and collectivism embodied in Castro and Che Guevara.
(7) Rational Future
The major force behind the appearance of Ayn Rand in Latin America is classical liberalism, or as it is referred to commonly—liberalism or neo-liberalism. Unlike in the United States, liberalism in Latin America still refers to the classical liberal tradition of Adam Smith, Bastiat, Hayek and Von Mises: a constitutional republic; rule of law; and laissez-faire economics. What is understood as liberalism in America would interpret as socialism in Latin America. Conservatism, on the other hand, has a darker tradition and has often been allied with military dictatorships, the Catholic Church, and with business interests that often owe their success to governmental intervention and contacts.
While often overshadowed by socialist and conservative parties, liberalism still has a large following in such countries as Argentina, Chile and Peru. In the election of 1990 in Perú, the renowned writer and liberal, Mario Vargas Llosa was narrowly defeated in the presidential race by Alberto Fujimori. (Vargas Llosa was one of the few people to attack both Fidel Castro and Augusto Pinochet as enemies of freedom.) In Chile, the liberal Sebastián Piñera, defeated the conservative candidate in a three-way race and then ran a close second in the 2006 presidential race to the socialist, Michelle Bachelet. Piñera is the brother of Jose Piñera, the economist and one of the architects of the “Chilean miracle.” In Argentina, Ricardo Lopez-Murphy heads a liberal party that faces stiff opposition from the socialists and the Peronist Party. Recently, Otto Guevara the libertarian candidate in the presidential election in Costa Rica ran third, and gained enough seats in the legislature to become the third political force in a country with multiple parties that number more than ten.
The websites of liberal organizations and political parties contain glowing praise for Ayn Rand’s ideas and novels, although they tend to shy away from the all-important moral foundation for capitalism, and tend to concentrate on politics and economics. In the all-important battle of ideas, liberal organizations are attacked by all spectrums of the political spectrum from the Marxists, nationalists, Social Democrats and by the Catholic Church.
No doubt, the battle in Latin America will differ from the history of the United States. I remember reading a major article about Ayn Rand by Claudia Dreifus in New Yorker magazine that appeared in the late nineties, in which, she failed to mention even once, Ayn Rand’s battle against the morality of altruism. The article centered on everything but the fundamentals of Objectivist philosophy. More than an aberration, the article pretty much followed the tone of the times, which was to refer to her as a conservative, mention her support for capitalism and leave out the philosophical base of what she was saying, especially her view on morality and altruism, which she referred to as “the poison of death in the blood of Western Civilization.” (1)
Unlike the disgraceful tendency of critics to somehow miss the fundamentals of what Ayn Rand was saying, in Latin America individualism, altruism, egoism and collectivism are openly brought to the surface even in articles that are negative in slant. Then, too, in many countries of Latin America, ideas are still considered important and intellectual life is much more robust than what one sees in the United States. No doubt, the intellectuals are heavily slanted toward Marxism, socialism and a benevolent welfare state, yet nonetheless, they are idea oriented and comfortable in the intellectual realm.
As an example of this, I would point to the recently elected vice-president of Bolivia, Alvaro García Linera, who in an interview stated he began reading Kant and Engels at the age of thirteen, and talked about a future for Bolivia in ideological terms. Compare that with the non-intellectual and often hostile attitude toward ideas and the intellect in the United States, led by the clownish Michael Moore and followed by the real-time politicians, George Bush, John Kerry, Teddy Kennedy and Dick Cheney. (2)
Perhaps, the fertile intellectual life still available in Latin America will make Ayn Rand’s Spanish journey much easier than what she experienced in the United States. This is a question for the future. What is apparent now is that she has arrived and her ideas are having a powerful effect on the cultural life south of the border from Mexico to the far reaches of Argentina and Chile. Once again, like a character in one of her novels, the great genius stamps her mark on a culture, this time in the very fertile ground of Francisco Domingo Carlos Andres Sebastian d'Anconia.
References
The Publishers
(1) See Interview with Rosa Peltz http://www.liberalismo.org/articulo/296/62
(2) See Fredy Kofman introduction in La Rebelión de Atlas
Bestseller History
(1) El Universal, March 25, 2004;
http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/pls/impreso/noticia.html?id_nota=222649&tabla=notas
(2) El Imparcial. Com, Diario Independiente de Sonora, Printed Edition, September 16, 2005
http://www.elimparcial.com/edicionenlinea/notas/Entretenimiento/20050916/117178.asp
See also http://www.elimparcial.com/edicionenlinea/nota.asp?NumNota=117555
(3) See Mauro Books website: http://www.maurolibros.com/
(4) See Cuspide Books website: http://www.cuspide.com/detalle_libro.php/9872095132
(5) See Boardsnet Books website: http://www.boardsnet.com/libros.htm
Ayn Rand’s Ascendency in Latin America
(1) Jaime Bayly, Amigos que perdí,” Chapter 2, Entrega 12; (Novel of Jaime Bayly available on www.terra.com)
http://www.terra.com/jaimebayly/IInovela0605.htm
(2) Laura Capriata, "En Chile, Menen prepara su defensa," La Nacion, February 2, 2004.
See website of Carlos Menen; http://www.carlosmenem.com/carta51.asp
(3) Mario Diament, "El Mito del Cowboy en La Casa Blanca," La Nacion, June 12, 2004.
(4) El Universal, October 25, 2005 http://www2.eluniversal.com.mx/pls/impreso/version_imprimir?id_nota=48084&tabla=finanzas
(5) Roberto Salinas León “Terrorism Verbal,” Todito.com, October, 2004.
http://www.todito.com/paginas/contenido/fc10042001/nt9660.html
(6) El Diario de Yucatán “Lo que tienes es lo que vales” September 15, 2005
(7) Interview in La Tercera with the actress María José Prieto; www.tercera.cl/diario/2002/02/03/03.23.3a.REP.PROUST.html
(8) Alicia Delibes, “El individualismo y Ayn Rand,” liberalismo.org; http://www.liberalismo.org/articulo/96/62
(9) Óscar Santamaría, “Los protagonistas del relevo en la Fed, ”La Voz De Galicia, October 26, 2005; http://www.lavozdegalicia.es/se_economia/noticia.jsp?CAT=108&TEXTO=4191932
(10) Hugh Pearman , “El Arquitecto de los derrumbes, ”El Mundo, July 31, 2005;
http://www.elmundo.es/suplementos/magazine/2005/305/1122638288.html
(11) Guevara ran for president in the 2006 elections in Costa Rica. Out of twelve candidates, he came in third with about eight percent of the vote. For a country mired in socialism, he ran a strong, pro-market campaign although non-philosophical. In a poll given to university students during the campaign, Guevara ran close to the top, almost defeating the presidential winner, Oscar Arias, the noted humantarian and Nobel Prize winner.
(12) Rafael Marrón González, “Who Works Doesn’t Eat Straw” Correo de Caroní, November 28, 2005; (http://www.correodelcaroni.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=12625&Itemid=126)
(13) A conference sponsored by Ricardo Rojas called ”Ayn Rand y Karl Popper sobre el conocimiento: ¿Es posible encontrar un punto de conexión?” July 7, 2005, Guatemala City, Guatemala; http://www.newmedia.ufm.edu.gt/pagina.asp?nom=randpopperconocimiento
(14) Cecilia Bembibre, “Ayn Rand, from the USSR to Hollywood,” Pagina 12
http://www.pagina12.com.ar/2000/00-02/00-02-02/pag22.htm
(15) Pablo Capanna, “Adorando,” Pagina 12, March 2, 2003
http://www.pagina12.com.ar/diario/suplementos/futuro/13-50-2002-03-02.html
Rational Future
(1) “Un intelectual sediento de lectura es el Vicepresidente,” La Razon de Bolivia
January 22, 2006
---------------------------------------------------------------
Notable personalities in Latin America have discovered the power of Ayn Rand. Two prominent writers in the Spanish-speaking world, Carlos Alberto Montaner and Alvaro Vargas Llosa have written introductions to The Fountainhead that appears on the cover of the Spanish edition.
Both men are former leftists who now are active in liberal organizations. Montaner is an internationally syndicated columnist and author, and Vargas Llosa is a writer and the son of Mario Vargas Llosa, the best-selling author whose many books are translated into English. The two men have authored a book called The Perfect Latin American Idiot, detailing the disastrous state-managed policies of Latin American governments and some of the disastrous thinking that support these policies.
Vargas Llosa, in his introduction to The Fountainhead, states that Ayn Rand, "an immigrant with a heavy accent, revolutionized the idea Americans have of themselves and reminds them that their country was founded on the moral base of individualism. She exhorts them to return to these roots under penalty of self-abnegation."
Montaner writes that The Fountainhead, "is one of the rare examples of a good novel based on liberal ideas, and that Howard Roark, a brilliant architect is ready to risk all to defend individual liberty." He goes on to say that Ayn Rand dedicated her intense and profound life to combating collectivism in any form and that novels with an ethical content are rare, and that The Fountainhead is the best example that he knows.
Another outstanding example, in addition to Vargas Llosa and Montaner, is the Peruvian author and television personality, Jaime Bayly, who in his book, Amigos que Perdí, mentions the “healthy egoism of Ayn Rand.” (1)
Interestingly, in La Nacion one of the major newspapers of Argentina, we find an article about Carlos Saúl Menen the ex-president of Argenitina, discovering Atlas Shrugged while he was in exile in Chile. According to the author of the article, Menen is a great admirer of the book and was recommending it to anyone who would listen. On his website, Menen mentions, in a piece to his fellow Peronists, that problems should be resolved, using the “serene and objective explanation of the facts, always to the light of the clear thinking of Alice Ayn Rand.”(2)
Unlike most journalistic articles about Ayn Rand that I have read, the author seems to know the subject about which she writes. She gives us a short background of Ayn Rand's life and then describes her as the founder of Objectivism. This is how she explains Objectivism in her very favorable article. "Objectivism expounds the existence of an objective reality that one can know by means of reason, proposes the ethic of self-interest and recommends the system of laissez-faire capitalism."
Another article that appeared in La Nacion in 2004, illustrates the growing popularity of Ayn Rand by the fact that there is no profound discussion of who she is. In the article called “The Myth of the Cowboy in the White House” the author, Mario Diament, talks about the Hollywood image of the cowboy: of the white American, alone and individualistic facing the forces of evil and that the morality of these pictures is usually that the cowboy must take responsibility no matter the circumstances. The author then states this is the same thing that Ayn Rand seeks, “the high priestess of capitalism, whose novels The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged contributed to define American morality in the decade of the fifties.”(3)
During its book fair, The University of Cema in Buenos Aires featured Ayn Rand’s main novels and had a scheduled reading open to the public.
From México, we learn that Atlas Shrugged sells at Liberías Gandhi for $30, and The Fountainhead for the same price. An article on the internet news site Terra.com relates that finally the rock group Rush is coming to Mexico, and that one of their most popular songs was based on Ayn Rand’s book, Anthem.
In an article in one of the principle newspapers, El Universal, about Alan Greenspan, the author states that few people know that he was a great friend of Objectivism and its author Ayn Rand. According to the article Ayn Rand considered him a disciple and an intellectual heir.(4)
In a major article from a magazine about economics, after the death of an ex-Mexican president involved in a bank nationalization, Roberto Salinas León, director of politics and economics at TV Azteca, quotes extensively from Atlas Shrugged about the meaning of money and its importance to a rational society. (5)
From El Diario de Yucatán, Ayn Rand is quoted as saying that “the person that would sell their soul for a few pennies is usually the one that proclaims in a loud voice that he hates money.” (6)
From one of the main newspapers out of Santiago, Chile, La Tercera, the actress, María José Prieto, when asked what book she should never lack in her personal library, answered, “The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand and The Art of Happiness by the Dalai Lama.” (7)
Being the mother country and one of the focal points of Latin culture, the media in Spain have been up to date in recognizing the increasing popularity of Ayn Rand in the Spanish-speaking world.
In a September 2002 article in the Spanish magazine, Libertad Digital, the Spanish author, Alicia Delibes, writes a convincing and interesting article about the “Individualism of Ayn Rand.” (8)
In an article from La Voz de Galicia, a daily published in Galicia, Spain, Ayn Rand is mentioned in context with Alan Greenspan and the appointment of his successor. Talking about Greenspan, the article states that now, “He would have more time to involve himself in the philosophy of Objectivism, which is about the benefits of individualism and rational egoism, whose creator, Ayn Rand, was his friend and mentor.” (9)
Notice here, like in many other articles I have read from Latin America, the journalist aims for clarity by using the modifier “rational” in front of egoist or egoism so as to distinguish Ayn Rand’s view from other views of egoism.
Also from Spain, the Diario Vasco, mentions Ayn Rand in regards to a meeting with the author Tobias Wolfe. Here again, no information is given and the article assumes the fame and notoriety of Ayn Rand.
A major article from El Mundo in Spain about Frank Lloyd Wright mentions Ayn Rand and states that Wright’s life inspired the The Fountainhead—a major success in book sales that was made into a movie. According to the article Howard Roark “was a genius who went against the current, a self-destructive architect disposed to dynamite his own buildings rather than surrender his convictions.” (10)
From Costa Rica, one learns that Otto Guevara, the imposing Libertarian candidate for president, when quizzed by the newspaper, La Republica about his favorite author and novel, named Ayn Rand and Atlas Shrugged. (11)
In an article from a Venezuelan newspaper called, “Who Works Doesn’t Eat Straw” Ayn Rand is quoted at the end of the article stating the wealth of the United States was not created by sacrifices to the common good, but by productive men seeking their own self-interest. The author compares this with the collectivist intention of promising food by making one a prisoner of socialist ideology. All of this is in context of the “socialist” revolution taking place in Venezuela, and the attempt by Hugo Chávez to do this under the banner of social justice. (12)
In Guatemala, a conference sponsored by Ricardo Rojas looks for the connection between Ayn Rand and Kart Popper, and if any is to be found. (13)
Luis Figueroa, a writer from Guatemala who writes a column on Saturdays in the paper, La Prensa, did a piece called “Ayn Rand and Individualism” that was published in March de 1987. In the article he describes Ayn Rand as one of the most notable defenders of individualism and then describes the basics of Objectivism.
On the shabby side of journalism in the Spanish-speaking world, we learn that Gary Cooper fell in love with Ayn Rand and convinced her to go to Hollywood, that Dominique Francon was a believer in patience and tolerance, that Howard Roark is definitely based on the life of Frank Lloyd Wright, and that Nathaniel Branden was married to Barbara Feldon.
A web magazine out of Argentina called Mercado seems to have Ayn Rand confused with L. Ron Hubbard and Scientology, alluding to both of them together as if they were the same entity, and mentioning her in connection with Robert Atkins, the best-selling diet doctor.
The increasing influence of Ayn Rand in Latin America becomes apparent in several articles published in Pagina 12, a left-wing daily out of Buenos Aires that is sympathetic to the socialism of Fidel Castro and Hugo Chávez. Although political in nature in covering the news and socialist in its slant, the paper also reports extensively on cultural affairs: movies, books and famous people in the news. It is a prominent daily and strives to maintain an aura of objective reporting.
Remarkably, the paper published a movie review of The Passion of Ayn Rand, the movie directed by Christopher Menaul and enthusiastically praised by Barbara Branden. The reviewer seems to accept the movie as fact and repeats Menaul’s version of Ayn Rand's life as if it was factually based. One positive note in the article was that the reviewer openly states that Ayn Rand, "embraced capitalism, and defended the right of the individual to be egoistic." Amazingly, at the end of the article it even offers a statement by Leonard Peikoff that the Branden’s view, one which the movie is based on, is extremely partial. (14)
In March of 2002, the paper published a major article about Ayn Rand accompanied by six photos of Rand taken by Andy Warhol. The article offered no footnotes in regard to where the author obtained his knowledge of Ayn Rand, but I could see that he was influenced by accounts by Barbara Branden and Murray Rothbard, repeating the typewriter story, and Rothbard's charges of a Stalinist-like cult of dogma and authoritarianism. (15)
While far from complimentary in his story, the author Pablo Capanna, like many people on the left in Latin America, is not reluctant to spell out the issues, and openly mentions Ayn Rand’s support of egoism and individualism, and her opposition to altruism. Along with this, he refers to her radical egoism and quotes her as saying "the root of all bad things stems from altruism because it subverts values and puts personal benefit below the general interest or welfare."
Relative to what I have seen in the United States over the years, especially from William F. Buckley’s National Review, this review from a left-wing daily, at least, stated openly the fundamentals of Objectivism.
In a lighter moment, the author compares Galt's speech at the end of Atlas Shrugged with the long-winded discourses of "Fidel." Apparently, he is aware of the power of Ayn Rand, and her challenge to the prevailing icons of altruism and collectivism embodied in Castro and Che Guevara.
(7) Rational Future
The major force behind the appearance of Ayn Rand in Latin America is classical liberalism, or as it is referred to commonly—liberalism or neo-liberalism. Unlike in the United States, liberalism in Latin America still refers to the classical liberal tradition of Adam Smith, Bastiat, Hayek and Von Mises: a constitutional republic; rule of law; and laissez-faire economics. What is understood as liberalism in America would interpret as socialism in Latin America. Conservatism, on the other hand, has a darker tradition and has often been allied with military dictatorships, the Catholic Church, and with business interests that often owe their success to governmental intervention and contacts.
While often overshadowed by socialist and conservative parties, liberalism still has a large following in such countries as Argentina, Chile and Peru. In the election of 1990 in Perú, the renowned writer and liberal, Mario Vargas Llosa was narrowly defeated in the presidential race by Alberto Fujimori. (Vargas Llosa was one of the few people to attack both Fidel Castro and Augusto Pinochet as enemies of freedom.) In Chile, the liberal Sebastián Piñera, defeated the conservative candidate in a three-way race and then ran a close second in the 2006 presidential race to the socialist, Michelle Bachelet. Piñera is the brother of Jose Piñera, the economist and one of the architects of the “Chilean miracle.” In Argentina, Ricardo Lopez-Murphy heads a liberal party that faces stiff opposition from the socialists and the Peronist Party. Recently, Otto Guevara the libertarian candidate in the presidential election in Costa Rica ran third, and gained enough seats in the legislature to become the third political force in a country with multiple parties that number more than ten.
The websites of liberal organizations and political parties contain glowing praise for Ayn Rand’s ideas and novels, although they tend to shy away from the all-important moral foundation for capitalism, and tend to concentrate on politics and economics. In the all-important battle of ideas, liberal organizations are attacked by all spectrums of the political spectrum from the Marxists, nationalists, Social Democrats and by the Catholic Church.
No doubt, the battle in Latin America will differ from the history of the United States. I remember reading a major article about Ayn Rand by Claudia Dreifus in New Yorker magazine that appeared in the late nineties, in which, she failed to mention even once, Ayn Rand’s battle against the morality of altruism. The article centered on everything but the fundamentals of Objectivist philosophy. More than an aberration, the article pretty much followed the tone of the times, which was to refer to her as a conservative, mention her support for capitalism and leave out the philosophical base of what she was saying, especially her view on morality and altruism, which she referred to as “the poison of death in the blood of Western Civilization.” (1)
Unlike the disgraceful tendency of critics to somehow miss the fundamentals of what Ayn Rand was saying, in Latin America individualism, altruism, egoism and collectivism are openly brought to the surface even in articles that are negative in slant. Then, too, in many countries of Latin America, ideas are still considered important and intellectual life is much more robust than what one sees in the United States. No doubt, the intellectuals are heavily slanted toward Marxism, socialism and a benevolent welfare state, yet nonetheless, they are idea oriented and comfortable in the intellectual realm.
As an example of this, I would point to the recently elected vice-president of Bolivia, Alvaro García Linera, who in an interview stated he began reading Kant and Engels at the age of thirteen, and talked about a future for Bolivia in ideological terms. Compare that with the non-intellectual and often hostile attitude toward ideas and the intellect in the United States, led by the clownish Michael Moore and followed by the real-time politicians, George Bush, John Kerry, Teddy Kennedy and Dick Cheney. (2)
Perhaps, the fertile intellectual life still available in Latin America will make Ayn Rand’s Spanish journey much easier than what she experienced in the United States. This is a question for the future. What is apparent now is that she has arrived and her ideas are having a powerful effect on the cultural life south of the border from Mexico to the far reaches of Argentina and Chile. Once again, like a character in one of her novels, the great genius stamps her mark on a culture, this time in the very fertile ground of Francisco Domingo Carlos Andres Sebastian d'Anconia.
References
The Publishers
(1) See Interview with Rosa Peltz http://www.liberalismo.org/articulo/296/62
(2) See Fredy Kofman introduction in La Rebelión de Atlas
Bestseller History
(1) El Universal, March 25, 2004;
http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/pls/impreso/noticia.html?id_nota=222649&tabla=notas
(2) El Imparcial. Com, Diario Independiente de Sonora, Printed Edition, September 16, 2005
http://www.elimparcial.com/edicionenlinea/notas/Entretenimiento/20050916/117178.asp
See also http://www.elimparcial.com/edicionenlinea/nota.asp?NumNota=117555
(3) See Mauro Books website: http://www.maurolibros.com/
(4) See Cuspide Books website: http://www.cuspide.com/detalle_libro.php/9872095132
(5) See Boardsnet Books website: http://www.boardsnet.com/libros.htm
Ayn Rand’s Ascendency in Latin America
(1) Jaime Bayly, Amigos que perdí,” Chapter 2, Entrega 12; (Novel of Jaime Bayly available on www.terra.com)
http://www.terra.com/jaimebayly/IInovela0605.htm
(2) Laura Capriata, "En Chile, Menen prepara su defensa," La Nacion, February 2, 2004.
See website of Carlos Menen; http://www.carlosmenem.com/carta51.asp
(3) Mario Diament, "El Mito del Cowboy en La Casa Blanca," La Nacion, June 12, 2004.
(4) El Universal, October 25, 2005 http://www2.eluniversal.com.mx/pls/impreso/version_imprimir?id_nota=48084&tabla=finanzas
(5) Roberto Salinas León “Terrorism Verbal,” Todito.com, October, 2004.
http://www.todito.com/paginas/contenido/fc10042001/nt9660.html
(6) El Diario de Yucatán “Lo que tienes es lo que vales” September 15, 2005
(7) Interview in La Tercera with the actress María José Prieto; www.tercera.cl/diario/2002/02/03/03.23.3a.REP.PROUST.html
(8) Alicia Delibes, “El individualismo y Ayn Rand,” liberalismo.org; http://www.liberalismo.org/articulo/96/62
(9) Óscar Santamaría, “Los protagonistas del relevo en la Fed, ”La Voz De Galicia, October 26, 2005; http://www.lavozdegalicia.es/se_economia/noticia.jsp?CAT=108&TEXTO=4191932
(10) Hugh Pearman , “El Arquitecto de los derrumbes, ”El Mundo, July 31, 2005;
http://www.elmundo.es/suplementos/magazine/2005/305/1122638288.html
(11) Guevara ran for president in the 2006 elections in Costa Rica. Out of twelve candidates, he came in third with about eight percent of the vote. For a country mired in socialism, he ran a strong, pro-market campaign although non-philosophical. In a poll given to university students during the campaign, Guevara ran close to the top, almost defeating the presidential winner, Oscar Arias, the noted humantarian and Nobel Prize winner.
(12) Rafael Marrón González, “Who Works Doesn’t Eat Straw” Correo de Caroní, November 28, 2005; (http://www.correodelcaroni.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=12625&Itemid=126)
(13) A conference sponsored by Ricardo Rojas called ”Ayn Rand y Karl Popper sobre el conocimiento: ¿Es posible encontrar un punto de conexión?” July 7, 2005, Guatemala City, Guatemala; http://www.newmedia.ufm.edu.gt/pagina.asp?nom=randpopperconocimiento
(14) Cecilia Bembibre, “Ayn Rand, from the USSR to Hollywood,” Pagina 12
http://www.pagina12.com.ar/2000/00-02/00-02-02/pag22.htm
(15) Pablo Capanna, “Adorando,” Pagina 12, March 2, 2003
http://www.pagina12.com.ar/diario/suplementos/futuro/13-50-2002-03-02.html
Rational Future
(1) “Un intelectual sediento de lectura es el Vicepresidente,” La Razon de Bolivia
January 22, 2006
This article is copyright © 2006, by Alan Tucker.
---------------------------------------------------------------
The following is a translation of an article about Ayn Rand that appeared in a Buenos Aires newspaper, Pagina 12, on March 2, 2002. To my knowledge it was the first major newspaper article about her in Argentina, and although a critical article it does maintain some attempt at objectivity. I include it here because ironically it has the opposite effect of what the author intends. He is intent on distorting Ayn Rand's legacy and her philosophy, yet what he accomplishes is a bold revelation of her ideas and philosophy in a world where she was little known.
The author of the article, Pablo Capanna, is a science fiction writer of note in the Spanish-language world, and especially in Argentina. Even though, he is intent on distorting Rand's legacy, his frank discussion of what Ayn Rand is about could make many a young mind curious about this great American writer and philosopher. Remember his article appeared in a left-wing paper that is also a cultural barometer, a newspaper that appeals to many young people interested in movies, the theatre and books. It stands to reason that some of these young people are curious, individualistic and perhaps looking for other views of the world. It is not much of a stretch of the imagination to envision young readers being pulled toward the bold, daring plots Capanna describes in his article, and the heroic characters who inhabit it. It would turn out to be rather ironic if his article served to advance Objectivism and rather than bury it.
The article appeared in Spanish and was translated by me. Any errors of fact in the original were translated exactly as written. At times the English translation is a little rough but I have refrained from polishing it to my style or in adding punctuation where the author has omitted it.
Here is the link to the original article in Spanish:
www.pagina12.com/diario/suplementos/futuros/index-2002-03-02.html
Note: The concept of individualism in Argentina differs from that of the United States, and lacks the historic philosophical roots inherent to the American Revolution, the Constitution and the culture. For the most part, in Argentina, individualism is seen in a negative light, a kind of narcissistic pursuit of self where the person does what they want without regard for others, or for that matter, the long-range self-interest of the individual. It usually implies a pursuit of one's material interest in disregard for the group, a wanton pursuit of pleasure in the mode of "getting mine" without concern for the consequences. In this sense, the Howard Roark pursuit of higher values usually doesn't enter into the picture, or if it does, probably is classified under a different concept.
The article:
Idolizing
by Pablo Capanna
One usually takes for granted that fundamentalism is a pathology of religion. Many of the things that have been written hurriedly in volumes about Islamic fundamentalism comes from this premise, that permits them to trivialize to the maximum many things in order to blame everything on Mohammed. Seemingly, we have forgotten the political fundamentalisms of the Twentieth Century, that when they weren’t atheistic only used religion pragmatically, but still were intolerant and sectarian to a grade never seen before. Also the Jacobins worshipped the god of reason, but ended up using the guillotine and the positivists worshipped science to only wind up revering the lover of Comte.
For this reason, when one speaks of the new "religious" fundamentalisms, one will have to think, much more than in theological questions, but in a undesired consequence of thinking, that erodes the cultural identity and pushes to defend fanatically the difference. Fanaticism, sectarianism and fundamentalism are recurring phenomenon of history. Equal to neurosis, they can justify themselves with any ideological guide. Also they can do it on a base of a rational program, abandoning critical thought in order to proclaim unquestionable dogmas, with an obstinacy of the worst inquisitions.
This paradox has occupied the time of the "skeptic" Michael Shermer, one of the few who mentions the Objectivism of Ayn Rand as a curious sect of rationalism that makes capitalism a dogma and ended up becoming a cult of the founder, justifiying ideologically her whims and creating a authoritarian discipline amongst her followers. The paradoxical history of Objectivism isn't well known, although no one will deny that it has influenced our lives. In its dogmas we can discover one of the sources of the unique thought that today inspires the Talibanes of the marketplace.
The Infallible Ayn Rand
Alissa Rosenbaum (1905-1982) was born in Saint Petersburg and died in New York. According to the official legend, she learned to read at six years old and at eight already wanted to be a writer. During the Russian Revolution, the pharmacy of her parents was expropriated and she had to immigrate to the Crimea. Later on, she studied philosophy and history in the city also known as Petrograd. Along with this, she fell in love with the movies of Hollywood and learned to write screenplays.
In 1926 she traveled to the United States, invited by some relatives that she had in Chicago, taking advantage of this connection to remain there. The following year she left for Hollywood and attracted the atttention of Cecil B. DeMille, who gave her a part as an extra in King of Kings. Her devotees usually look for her face in the crowd of people who are following Christ on the road to Gólgota. Together with her in the picture was Frank O'Connor, who later become her husband. O'Connor, who only reached a certain fame at her side, wasn't a star: his filmography only includes various "B" movies as a policemen, parishioner, sheriff or employee of the telegraph company between 1922 and 1934.
Rosenbaum, who now called herself Ayn Rand (a name inspired by her Remington Rand typewriter) managed to sell a screenplay in 1932, with which she stopped working as an extra and had time in order to write. Her first novels, We the Living (1936) and Anthem (1938), cultivated an anti-communism that opened the doors of the publishing market for her. Two best sellers, The Fountainhead (1943) and Atlas Shrugged (1957) assured her place as a successful author, permiting her to amass a fortune and to found a ideological movement. Her fame made her an cultural reference point of the American right wing. In spite of having written only novels and articles, she was acclaimed as a thinker and compared with Aristole and Kant. In the seventies, Andy Warhol photographed her and enthroned her amongst the idols of America. At that time, an institute destined to spread her philosophy already existed that won followers day after day, when a sexual scandal suddenly occurred that divided her loyal followers. She died, very forgotten, in her apartment in New York and was buried in a coffin that had engraved the "$." It was her personal emblem, that she shared with that millionaire uncle of Donald Duck that inspired Paul Getty.
The Bible of Rand
One says that the books of Rand have sold more than four million copies, which permits her to compete with the Bible and Harry Potter. During the seventies, when the students of the American campuses also looked for inspiration, from Marcuse, Thoreau and Tolkien, she reached the height of her popularity. Later, she was read by bankers, consultants for business and by Republican politicians.
It is difficult to find a critic capable of finding literary merit in her novels, and professional philosophers never took her ideas seriously. Her followers point out that the critics never read Atlas Shrugged, which is explainable, given that it is a large, bulky book with small print. Her third novel, The Fountainhead, that was interpreted for the movies in 1948 with Gary Coooper and Patricia Neal, is about the battle of a brilliant architect against mediocrity, and owes a debt to Ibsen. Quite different are Anthem and Atlas Shrugged, that according to the encyclopedia Clute and MacNicholls, could fit inside the science fiction genre because they take place in the not too distant future.
The Anthem in question is about the admiration of the individual for himself, the triumph of the I to the style of Whitman. The focus of the book is a grotesque socialist dystopia. It takes place in a world where collectivism has triumphed, causing the extinction of individual initiative, science and art. Everything belongs to the State, but misery reigns, the people light there way with candles and dress with burlap sacks. The heroic protagonist rebels against the system and escapes torture because the prison is inefficient and bureaucratic. He meets his girlfriend, flees with her to the country and finishes his work the day that he reinvents the electric lamp. He has discovered the power of the individual and sings a hymn to himself. In this world, the State obliges everybody to speak in plural so as to combat individualism. For example, when the hero falls in love he feels obligated to say, "we appreciate that they have beautiful curves." With this language, a few pages into the book, it becomes not only absurd but frankly unreadable. Luckily, it is not a large story, to the point that the editors saw themselves obligated to complete it with the version facsimilar of the manuscript.
The voluminous Atlas, on the other hand, dramatizes a strike by capitalists, something similar to a massive lock out of the captains of industry and Finance, that Rand considers a persecuted minority, victim of the regulated State. The novel takes place in an imprecise future where socialism has become dominant in the world. In the United States, efficiency is discouraged and it is even believed that people have a right to things like a livable salary or education, when the only thing that counts is the freedom of business. What is notable is the myopia with what Rand, who in some ways resembles Stalin, is imagining a future dominated by trains and cables of copper. To write this in 1957, when asomaban the highways, planes and fiber optic, was very naïve. The United States is in frank and irreversible decadence; the unions defend the vagrants, the strikers abandon a train with all the passengers in the middle of the desert and the State prohibits technical innovations in order to protect the sources of work. The book opens with the "repulsive" image of a homeless man who begs money and doesn’t skip descriptions almost racist about the common people, the worthless failures that live in this world that the great men build.
Ayn Rand portrays herself in the heroine, Dagny Taggart, who is tenacious, fearless and promiscuous. Dagny fights so that her private railroad can count on rails made from a miraculous alloy created by Rearden another innovative magnate, that will permit her trains to reach great speeds. The crisis is terminal and it will finish with a great blackout in New York. Persecuted, The Captains of Industry, become fed up with the welfare state and abandon the society of the mediocre, the "looters" of the wealth that only The Captains are capable of creating.
They take refuge in a secret base in Colorado, where they wait the collapse of the system. Amongst them there is a misunderstood composer and a philosopher who became a pirate so he could rob the State, the opposite of Robin Hood, who for Rand was the epitome of evil. There is even a millionaire Argentinean with an Italian last name, but she says that he comes from noble, Spanish blood and owns great deposits of copper, which could make him Chilean. But all that is… in Brasil.
When the government is set to nationalize his company, the owner sets fire to his oil fields and the Argentine man blows up his copper mines in order to accelerate the collapse of the system. It is about impoverishing the people not so that they rebel but that they resign themselves.
The movement has a leader in hiding: a brilliant engineer called John Galt, who invented an electric motor that converts static movement, but he destroys the prototype in order to become part of the resistance. The ideological nucleus of the novel takes place in a long speech by Galt who seizes a chain of radio stations and dispatches a speech to the country as long as those of Fidel.
Pressured by henchman of the State, Galt is tortured with electric charges (Ayn had a certain amount of sadomasochistic desires) but the machine breaks down for lack of parts. Galt escapes and reunites in the mountains with the other business people. There they will wait for society to pray to them to return in order to give them absolute power. In the meantime, they smoke exquisite cigarettes stamped with the dollar sign. In the main plaza, the put up an enormous "$" sign from stainless steel. "In it we trust…"
Bargain Basement Philosophy
A laborious, critical analysis of her two novels and the writings of Rand against the left, the unions, the students and the welfare state, in defense of the market economy and egoism as a social principle, has shown how her disciples can compile something that not only they call a philosophical system but the greatest of all times.
The system is summed up in a catechism of few words: objectivism, rationality, self-interest and capitalism. Her ideology is usually defined as libertarian, something that in the Unites States is the opposite of what we know as anarchism. Obviously, it is not enough to affirm that one is a "realist" (that means objectivism) or that her epistemology consists of counting on only "reason." People like Aristotle, Kant or Hegel have needed gallons of ink in order to explain things like that and still we can continue discussing them. For Rand it is enough to proclaim them. In front of the radical egoism of Rand, Bentham and Mill—the English utilitarians of the nineteenth century—seem to be philanthropists. For Rand, the root of all evil is altruism, now that this works against putting the supreme good ( personal benefit) above the general interest. Her strength wasn’t ethics nor logic.
Society divides itself between "looters" and "creators." The first only ask that society support them and respect their rights. The second create wealth for everybody, but only when they do it for themselves. Later, they will say that creation of wealth will take place under a free market. Nothing is said of how many mediocre people they need so that a hero gains his accumulation of capital, since it appears that the genuises create things from nothing.
Human, too Human
In the sixties, when the individualist tendencies that would feed the New Age movement, flourished in the universities, Nathaniel Branden arose as the official word of Objectivism and founded an institute dedicated to spreading Objectivism. Under the watch of Rand and Branden arose a sect of their own members called the "Collective." Before breaking with his leader, Branden had been proclaimed the spiritual heir but later on was expelled. Murray Rothbard, a dissident, was the first to denounce the "totalitarian" practices of the movement for which he was cursed as a traitor. Meanwhile, Branden and his wife had fallen in desgrace. Recently, many years after the death of Rand, in the eighties, they both dared to publish books where they denounced the practices of the Objectivist Collective. According to the repentive Branden, the followers believed that Rand was the greatest personality produced by the human genus and that in Atlas Shrugged she completed the history of her thought.
In her movement individualistic dissent wasn't tolerated, and her desires were the esthetic paradigm. Ayn had thrown out some associates because they didn't like the music of Rachmaninoff, which was a clear indication of their inferiority. In this, and in the "cult of the personality" she resembled Stalin. The scandal began when Branden and Ayn became lovers. As both were Superior Human Beings, they received the agreement of their spouses Frank O'Connor and Barbara Branden to the right of one night a week of passion. But some time after Ayn discovered that Branden, defender of the free market, had a second lover. At that time, this news created a major break.
She had written that the biblical prescription, "judge not, less you be judged" was a cowardly expression. It was revealed to Nat (Nathaniel), to whom she wished impotency for the rest of his days and promised to destroy him. In the end, she issued a excommunication for Nat and his wife, for "having betrayed the principles of Objectivism" with their "irrational" conduct and expelled them ignominiously from the organization. In those days, there were loyal followers who proposed to thrash them and even to do worst things.
The scandal profoundly divided the movement, whose decline became inevitable. En 1982, Rand died surrounded by a small group of loyal followers, and was buried together with her husband, the complaisant Frank O'Connor. But years later the executor of her will Leonard Peikoff founded the Rand Institute that continued spreading her philosophy from California. All this would be anecdotal if we fail to remember that Rand was the first to speak of deregulation, privatization, global capitalism and other ideas that were put forth from Reagan. The Institute continued actively, and even has an Argentine branch, and in March of 2001 it organized a seminar in Punta del Este for continental free trade.
A brief trip through the internet shows us that Rand continues to generate philosophical interest, which includes people who write books in order to refute her epistemology and her ethics. The Catholic philosopher Michael Novak tried to demonstrate that Objectivism is compatible with Christianity, but, a few websites beyond this, something that titles itself as the Front of the Liberation of Lucifer exalts him as a moral hero diametrically opposed to Judeo-Christian cowardice. Only the market can achieve these coincidences.
The gross doctrines of Ayn Rand and the tragicomic history of liberal Stalinism would seem like things that we have surmounted, but we continue living with them. We read in Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal, a recapitulation of the writings of Rand and her associates from 1967. We find there the work of the heretic Branden, rehabilitated for the purpose of publishing the book as if nothing had happened. The big surprise, however, is that we bump into with nothing less than three articles an old friend of ours. It is nothing less than Alan Greenspan, the president of the Federal Reserve that at that time criticized the populism of the democrats. In things like this they believe that they rule the world, although because of their shame they usually don't admit it.
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