In defence of Ayn Rand (or those bloody kids...)

The old saying goes that those who are conservative when young have no heart, and those who are not conservative when old have no common sense. Or something along those lines. Now exactly what “conservative” means is beyond me (I think it has something to do with thinking it the height of wit to refer to the prime minister as Ju-liar). However I’ve discovered, with some unease, that I am increasingly capable of occasionally considering the writings of Gerard Henderson or, (shock and/or horror), Dennis Shanahan, with something other than involuntary loathing.

Is this normal? Am I a freak? Am I submitting to the aforementined platitude? Fuck, it’s a depressing thing indeed if the entirety of a person’s cultural and political development can be reduced to some condescending axiom.

I dunno. At the risk of engaging in reckless self rationalisation, I think there may be a kernel of something appealing in what the old bastards are getting at with their endless railing against “greenies”, “pinkos” and ”latte sipping, ivory tower dwelling, basket weaving, doo gooding” elites.

Don’t get me wrong – conservatives’ endless desire to castigate by way of puerile labels is unarguably retarded. But what I do like about the basket of political opinions termed conservative is those generally referred to as “libertarian”. That is, self determination, anti-authoritarianism and the unrelenting arrogance of the “get out of my way” viewpoint, encapsulated by none other than that fucked up prophetess of “objectivism”, Ayn Rand.

Rand has provided “progressives” with something of a paradoxical difficulty for yonks. While promoting female characters who are strong, self defined and active agents in a “masculine” world, she also manages to provide those female characters with a range of submissive sexual proclivities not far off the kind of kitcsch goings on in novels with titles like “Spanking Stories” or “Ms M’s school for naughty girls”. But more to the point, while her staunch promotion of the invisible hand and lassaiz faire markets is anathema to most progressives, her almost anarchistic opposition to statism and authoritarianism is likely to appeal to many of those lefties.

And its that anti-statism that also appeals to me. (Somewhat paradoxically, given that I work in government). Maybe it’s a mark of arrogance, but I just don’t consider there to be many people in the world who are really in any position to tell me how to live my life. Elected governments are a convenience in that they provide services which I desire, and for that I am willing to contribute revenue to them by way of taxes. But when they start telling me whether I can go see a movie or not, what books I can read, what God I can or can’t believe in, what man/woman/donkey/tree I can or cant fuck….well it really “gets my goat” (as Mavis, calling from Ipswich, is wont to scream at Alan Jones on the morning shift…)…

And the thing is, the “progressives” are just as capable of this kind of behaviour as the “conservatives”. Most traditional leftist parties are all about increasing government control of the marketplace through the use of regulation, nationalisation or other forms of direct government intervention. While a degree of government involvement in any free market is a good thing, too much of it inevitably leads to gross inefficiencies, not to mention consolidation of far too much power in the hands of bureaucrats (like me). Similarly, excessive increases in personal income tax, or company tax, can be viewed as governments directly constraining the freedom of individuals (or, shareholders, by way of companies) to economic self determination. And this is just economics - we haven’t even started talking about those issues “wrapped up” in the burqua – the right of non-western cultures to self determination vs the universal right of women to be considered equal to men and not cloistered behind layers of heavy black cloth.

Anyway, maybe I’m becoming an anarchist in my old(er) age. That’s more appealing – anarcho syndicalist has a better ring to it than cranky old fucker ranting at “those bloody kids”…