Published 15 February 2005

(word count: 750)

February 2, 2005, the Centenary of Ayn Rand's birth, has inspired an abundance of autobiographical essays on "Why I am an Objectivist" or "How I became a Libertarian" or, in my instance, a contrite confessional about "How I Ripped Off Ayn Rand."

It all started when I was twelve or thirteen and my big brother introduced me to science fiction.  He gave me a paperback anthology that reprinted short stories from an earlier decade's pulp periodicals like Amazing Stories, Astounding Stories, Fantastic Stories and I Am Not Making This Up (Oops, that was Dave Barry).

After reading several of these omnibi (that's plural for omnibus), I decided to tackle my first novel, thereby quickly acquainting myself with Robert A. Heinlein, the grand guru of SF.  My favorite books, as most libertarian/SF aficionados would figure, were "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" and "Stranger in a Strange Land" (which I initially identified as contradictory righty and lefty tales but later recognized as consistent libertariana).

But other happenings were happening.  Having failed to matriculate beyond two years of college while settling down to a life of marital and familial poverty, I took a fling at self education, reading classics like The Scarlet pimpernel and The Scarlet Letter and Scarlet O'Hara and even classics that weren't scarlet.  When that got boring I decided to switch to something slightly more contemporary.  Since I couldn't afford the price of a 35 cent paperback and the Minnesota winter made it too cold to leg it to the library, I began rummaging through the books that had been kicking around the apartment for years.

I don't know where Atlas Shrugged came from, or how it got onto my bricks-and-boards bookshelf, but there in the late 60s I had vaguely remembered hearing something about it.  So I began reading.

About a quarter of the way through I muttered to myself, "There's sure a lot of philosophy in this novel!"  Another quarter and I grumbled, "There's sure a lot of novel in this Philosophy!."  By the time I finished I yelped to myself, "More!"  And quickly devoured all of her fiction.

Then I moved on to her nonfiction and that's when I ran into real trouble.  I didn't know what she was talking about.  What the hell is epistemology?  What's empiricism?  Pragmatism?  Who is this Immanuel Kant character?  Credits in art appreciation and Introduction to Liberal Touchy-Feely Creative Writing just didn't cut it.  So I put aside The Virtue of Selfishness or whatever it was, scraped nickels together, and bought an obscenely thick book purporting to be a history of philosophy.

After which, in as rapid a succession as comprehending Objectivism ever gets, I read all of her nonfictions, hooked up with a discussion group, Listened to Nathaniel Branden's "Lectures on Objectivism" on 33-1/3 vinyl LPs, hung out with the Students of Objectivism of the University of Minnesota, and joined the Libertarian Party of Minnesota.

But else events were afoot.  I became a charter subscriber to The Ayn Rand letter.  Not having the $36 subscription fee I checked the "bill me later" box and began receiving my issues.  And began receiving demands for payment.  But I was poor, remember?  Every time I scraped together $36 the kids needed something (silly stuff like shoes or dental attention) or the car broke down or my (first) wife made yet another trip through the revolving hospitalization looking glass into manic-depression land.

Eventually, my marriage and my life and my family fell apart and I departed on a journey not only of time and miles but of self rehabilitation wherein I reconfigured myself as Ms Rand would have had me do, from an altruist into an Objectivist (or at least to the extent that I could, having learned conclusively that my brain was not sufficiently brainy to ever call myself "intellectual."

So I never did pay that $36 subscription, which makes me, as Ms Rand would have it, a "looter."  I ripped off my idol!

How, then, do I reach redemption?  I still have those ill-gotten "Letters," ranging from October, 1971 to May, 1973.  All of volume I and much of volume II.  Do I donate them to the Ayn Rand Institute or Objectivism.Net or The Objectivist Center or Objectivism Online or the Objectivism Reference Center or to Dr. Leonard Peikoff, purportedly Ayn Rand's legal heir?  That way I wouldn't really be ripping off Rand – I was merely saving her epistolary sorties for posterity.  What a guy!

Hey, who're you calling a relativist?