Ayn Rand explained in a comic series

Oct 03, 2014

There’s no doubt that Ayn Rand is one of world literature’s most polarising figures. While she is heavily condemned by some and parodied because of her philosophy of objectivism, there are others who worship her for the exact same reasons.

Rand spent most of her life preaching individualism over collectivism and seeing altruism as a sin, yet some of the most pronounced ironies of her life emerges from this same disdain, as Jonathan Crow in OpenCulture.com points out: “Rand preached the virtue of individuality but she ruthlessly excommunicated anyone in her cult-like inner circle who deviated from her ideology. She praised reason over emotion but her spectacularly complicated personal life was riddled with petty jealousies and long simmering feuds. She abhorred government aid for the poor but she lived on Social Security at the end of her life.”

It might come as a surprise to some that the conservative right-wing of the United States has suddenly started worshipping her, since it was once critical of her non-belief in god, individual right to abortion and her opposition to individual’s need to pay taxes to her government, but then there’s Bhagat Singh and Mahatma Gandhi customised by the Indian right.

Here are some brilliant cartoons by Darryl Cunningham that summarises Rand’s life, work and philosophy.