Found this super-fascinating article on Foreign Policy's website that explores the takeoff of Objectivism in the world's most populous democracy.
For those unfamiliar with Objectivism, it is a philosophy created by Russian-American writer and thinker Ayn Rand back in the earlier part of the 20th century. Her two most famous works, The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, put the Objectivist philosophy into practice, and have had an enormous impact on Western culture in the past half-century.
Back in high school I read some Objectivist philosophy and found the idea of self-centered idealism rather distasteful. However, in my early 20s I read the Fountainhead and loved it. While I don't enjoy Atlas Shrugged as much (too much beating you about the head with her philosophy--and you may as well skip the last 200 pages) the book has sold more copies than pretty much any book other than the Bible.
Choice quote from FP article:
"Rand's celebration of independence and personal autonomy has proven to be powerfully subversive in a culture that places great emphasis on conforming to the dictates of family, religion, and tradition...Rand's theory of the supremacy of reason and the virtue of selfishness adds up to "the antithesis" of Indian culture, which explains the attraction for...many rebellious Indian teens today."
In recent years, Rand has fallen out of favour as the economic monolith of the US has collapsed upon itself. In burgeoning democracies like India, however, this newly-discovered philosophy is a runaway hit. It's interesting to see the progression of capitalist ideas in society so completely different than ours in North America. Its impact on future world events could be interesting, especially since 1/6 of the world's population is involved.
And hey, if nothing else, maybe we'll get a really great, musical number-filled Bollywood version of John Galt's speech. Rousing.
2 comments:
It's hard for me to take Rand seriously when her books were touted as the personal Bibles of Fox News this past year, where a 3 percent hike in taxes on the super-rich, many of whom helped speed up the financial collapse in the US with their greed, stupidity, and old-fashioned fraud and treachery, was equated with communism.
And speaking of India and controversial self-help books, I think this is even more interesting...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/22/hitlers-mein-kampf-seen-a_n_190064.html
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