“We the Living

(Published 20.6.2009)

http://www.dailynationalcourier.com/national_courier/jun2009_daily/20-06-09/artical/artical1.htm

“I need no warrant for being, and no word of sanction upon my being.  I am the warrant and the sanction; We can evade reality, but we cannot evade the consequences of evading reality; The spread of evil is the symptom of a vacuum. whenever evil wins, it is only by default: by the moral failure of those who evade the fact that there can be no compromise on basic principles; The question isn't who is going to let me, it's who is going to stop me; A gun is not an argument; Anybody who fights for the future, lives in it today.
Born Alisa Zinov'yevna Rosenbaum and educated in Russia she emigrated to the US of A in 1926 at the tender age of 21. She died 27 years ago leaving behind a rich intellectual, philosophical and literary legacy as novelist, philosopher, playwright, a Hollywood screen writer and most of all for developing a philosophical system “Objectivism that theorizes that human knowledge and values are objective; that truth is truth everywhere independent of human thought or feelings and that the only social system consistent with this morality is fullest respect for individual rights.
Known to the world as Ayn Rand, she penned down her philosophical thoughts in a number of novels and non-fiction books including The Objectivist Newsletter, The Objectivist, The Ayn Rand Letter, Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology and The Virtue of Selfishness.
We the Living, her first novel that she said was “a close intellectual biography' was published in 1936. Set in Communist Russia it discussed the struggle between the individual and the state, that is the state tyranny, and turned into couple of movies without her permission. However, she achieved fame with the publication of her novel The Fountainhead in 1943 and re-enforced her genuinely earned fame again with the publication of philosophical novel Atlas Shrugged â€" was published in 1957.
In late 1925, determined never to return to Russia , she got permission to leave Soviet Russia for a visit to relatives the USA , arriving in New York City in February 1926. After living 6 months with relatives in Chicago she extended her visa and headed for Hollywood to become a screenwriter. On her second day in Hollywood she was noticed by Academy Award-winning film director, Cecil B. DeMille, outside the gate of his studio. He not only offered her a ride to the set of his movie The King of Kings but also gave her a job as an extra initially and script writer later.
Her novella Anthem was published in England in 1938. It was published in the USA seven years later. Anthem deals with dystopia- a society where conditions of life are miserable and are characterized by poverty, oppression, war, violence, disease, pollution, and total disregard for human rights thereby causing widespread and immense human misery, pain, suffering and exploitation. Anthem also warned about the triumph of collectivism in a future world where the word “I would become totally obsolete.
Atlas Shrugged, Ayn's greatest and last the work of fiction that brought her worldwide success in 1943, is an intellectual mystery story that presents a magnificent mix of ethics, metaphysics, epistemology, politics and economics. Ayn Rand devoted her time writing and lecturing on Objectivism, which she called “a philosophy for living on earth. She published and edited her own periodicals from 1962 to 1976 that provided the material for six books on Objectivism. Atlas Shrugged centres around an uncompromising young architect and his struggle against what Rand called “second-handers- those who attempt to live through others, placing others above self. It was a novel that was rejected by twelve publishers before a publishing house was forced to accept it when one of its editorial board member threatened to quit if is not published. Till April 2003[update], over six million copies of Atlas Shrugged were sold and it still and continues to sell about around 100,000 copies a year.
Every single book of Ayn Rand published during her lifetime is still in print selling hundreds of thousands of copies each year, totaling over 25 million copies so far. Several new volumes are also being published posthumously. Her writings have great influence on the lives and habits of hundreds of thousands of readers, Americans and non-Americans alike, that helped launch a philosophic movement and profound influence on American culture.
On July 16, 1969, as invited “VIPs, Rand and her husband were invited to attend the launch of Apollo 11, the space mission which first landed men on the surface of the moon, as VIPs. It was an event that inspired her to pen a couple ofessays.
Just who is, yes 'is' despite being dead since March 6, 1982, Ayn Rand? Read some of her quotes to know who she is: “I need no warrant for being, and no word of sanction upon my being. I am the warrant and the sanction; We can evade reality, but we cannot evade the consequences of evading reality; The spread of evil is the symptom of a vacuum. whenever evil wins, it is only by default: by the moral failure of those who evade the fact that there can be no compromise on basic principles; The question isn't who is going to let me, it's who is going to stop me; A gun is not an argument; Anybody who fights for the future, lives in it today.
Despite strongly disagreeing with her views that the “laissez-faire (free market economy is the only moral social sytem, which I consider an extremely most inhumane system and despite severe criticism of her by such morally upright modern day philosopher and intellectual Noam Chomsky who declared her “one of the most evil figures of modern intellectual history as well as conservative commentator William F. Buckley's declaration that “Ayn Rand is dead and so her stillborn philosophy Ayn Rand still appeals to me to certain extent. This is so because she dares us to fight for the future so that we “could live in it today.