Ayn Rand: Admirer Of Serial Killers
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Suddenly the right’s love of Rand makes total sense.
Back in the late 1920s, as Ayn Rand was working out her philosophy, she became enthralled by a real-life American serial killer, William Edward Hickman, whose gruesome, sadistic dismemberment of 12-year-old girl named Marion Parker in 1927 shocked the nation. Rand filled her early notebooks with worshipful praise of Hickman. According to biographer Jennifer Burns, author of Goddess of the Market, Rand was so smitten by Hickman that she modeled her first literary creation — Danny Renahan, the protagonist of her unfinished first novel, The Little Street — on him.
15 Responses to “Ayn Rand: Admirer Of Serial Killers”
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© 2000-2011 Oliver Willis
Paul Ryan is an admirer of an admirer of serial killers
I tried to read one of her books once. I think I made it through almost 4 pages.
where did my comment go ?
I’d like to offer a bit of advice, if I may.
When you set about to initiate or perpetuate a smear campaign against someone like Ayn Rand, it would serve you better to pick a subject that someone other than the ignorant would actually believe. Anyone who knows anything at all about Ayn Rand would never believe that she would admire someone for any kind of violence, much less for killing children, as no one was more adamant in opposing aggression (initiation of force) than she.
Of course, you may simply have been wishing to appeal to the ignorant in this discussion; if so, you seem to have succeeded.
In any case, good luck with your future smears.
Frank,
it was stolen from your productivity by a whining, mooching second-hander.
Who should be killed and dismembered.
My own Ayn Rand memory – finding a copy of “The Fountainhead” at the library when I was about thirteen. I got to about page twenty before realizing: first, this book would be all about Howard Roark; second, that Howard Roark was a complete a$$hole. Deciding that I did not wish to read such a book, I naarrowly escaped becoming a smug, irritating prat.
Well, I _was_ a teenager, so correct that to even _more_ of a smug, irritating prat. Instead, I read “Exterminator!” by William S. Burroughs, and became mentally disturbed in a slightly less stereotypical manner.
I’ll admit to being largely ignorant about Ayn Rand, having been discouraged from reading her work by virtually every description of it I’ve ever read. That doesn’t mean that it isn’t worth reading, or that it is. I’m not an aficionado of Charlie Manson’s music, either, but who knows? Maybe he’s got some chops. Maybe I’ll find out one day.
In the meantime, maybe you can help an ignorant fellow out — that is, if that doesn’t constitute “considering others”, which apparently Rand considered immoral. Or maybe I have that wrong? Please, enlighten. If this is a “smear campaign” against Rand, perhaps you can provide some evidence that she ever said a critical word against Hickman or his actions. That would go a long way toward rebutting the outrageous slander contained in the quoted article.
Anytime.
I’ll try again :
It would make sense, if the hundreds of thousands of readers who were influenced by Ayn Rand’s writing to become conservatives of all types were aware of this arcane and irrelevant tidbit. But they were not.
The idea that advocating for a killer can influence one’s thinking is, of course, ludicrous — can you say “Mumia”?
Taking up the cause of killers is not peculiar to either the left or the right.
Third, you got “Fountainhead” and Maidenhead confused and thought it was gonna be a dirty book.
Is it just me, or does it seem that people who read Burroughs tend to be liberals, people who read Rand tend to be smug, irritating prats?
Did somebody say “smear campaign”?
Are any conservatives aware that she enjoyed sexual liaisons with men who were not her husband? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nathaniel_Branden
Except that no leftist, AFAIK, is saying that Mumia engaged in a justified killing of a cop, or that he should be emulated despite the fact that he was convicted of murder.
Duros, I read “Naked Lunch” before I read “Atlas Shrugged”.
Timmy, I suppose you are suggesting that the staid , law abiding , conservative would be so horrified to learn of her illicit liaisons as to want to burn down a library where her books might be found.
Would you care to speculate on how many people there are that read one or more Ayn Rand books and subsequently became conservatives, without knowing anything at all about Ayn Rand’s life ? I would guess, at a minimum, several hundred thousand.
Oliver’s lede suggest that some little known fact of Ayn Rand’s life is somehow instructive as to the nature of conservatives or conservatism.
Why, that would be like finding out that the first Democrat owned slaves … Oh, wait !
timmy, the way you describe it leaves out the best part. She used “objectivism” to try to justify this with her husband and his wife. When Nathaniel then wanted to bone a younger (and probably less crazy) woman, Ayn freaked the hell out.
Timmy, I suppose you are suggesting that the staid , law abiding , conservative would be so horrified to learn of her illicit liaisons as to want to burn down a library where her books might be found.
Of course not. That would be morally consistent.
Well, there ya go. Shoulda stopped there.
The original article is a hack job precisely because it deals in non-essentials. From my understanding, Rand did write a short note about Hickman. In it she repudiated his actions. What she noted was his indifference to the outcome of his trial. It was that, and only that attitude that she observed as something worthy of comment. I believe the actual quote can be found in the “Journals of Ayn Rand”. Go read it for yourself before passing judgment.
Everything else that she wrote makes it abundantly clear that she considers the initiation of force a great, great evil. So, yes, this is a smear campaign. Ayn Rand did not worship a mass-murderer, and suggesting that she did without evidence is complete and utter crap.