I found Jon Chait's essay on Ayn Rand and objectivism really interesting, particularly this part:
For conservatives, the causal connection between virtue and success is not merely ideological, it is also deeply personal. It forms the basis of their admiration of themselves. If you ask a rich person whether he ascribes his success to good fortune or his own merit, the answer will probably tell you whether that person inhabits the economic left or the economic right. Rand held up her own meteoric rise from penniless immigrant to wealthy author as a case study of the individualist ethos. "No one helped me," she wrote, "nor did I think at any time that it was anyone's duty to help me."
For me, the idea that someone's station in life is due entirely to personal effort, owing nothing to given circumstances, always struck me as a weak person's attempt to cope with the unfairness of life. Some people are born into absolute misery, some people are born into great fortune. Most of us lie somewhere in between, and we muddle through, sometimes on our own steam, sometimes through the kindness of friends, family or strangers. But sometimes life is just unfair, and there's little any individual person can do about it. Objectivism is a philosophy designed to deal with the existential anxiety of that realization -- and to rationalize opposition to any effort whatsoever on the part of those who think government should, within reason, mitigate those adversities that are beyond our individual control. It's not just about narcissism. It's about fear.
But it's not just rich people who take comfort in objectivism, or so many of its ideas wouldn't be so broadly shared. Objectivism in a society like ours can track easily with racism -- because people of color are more likely to occupy the bottom rungs of the labor force, objectivism can act as a self-justifying mechanism for policies that maintain inequality. And as long as poverty and therefore immorality are associated with people of color -- even if you're a broke white person, objectivism can offer you the sweet feeling of moral superiority. After all, how many objectivists imagine themselves as the parasites, rather than the John Galts?
I guess that's the weirdest irony for me: Some of the folks getting riled up at these tea parties have more in common with the folks they're angry might get health care than the people getting them riled up in the first place.
-- A. Serwer
