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Without a Prayer By John W. Robbins |
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In 1926, a young Russian émigré made her way to Chicago to visit relatives. Fresh from the University of Petrograd, Alissa Zinovievna Rosenbaum desperately wanted to escape the Communists who had captured her country, even if it meant abandoning her family in Russia. Taking a new name from a typewriter (Remington-Rand) and a Nordic novel, Ayn Rand soon made her way to Hollywood and established herself as a screenwriter and playwright. But she quickly turned to writing novels as the most effective vehicle for advancing her ideas. Forty years after publication of her major novel of ideas, Atlas Shrugged, and fifteen years after her death, Ayn Rand remains a best-selling author. Her many books, both fiction and non-fiction, have been read by millions of people, and some of them take her ideas very seriously. Rand has been a major influence on the libertarian and conservative movements in America, and her books are now being distributed worldwide. At least two of Rand's novels--The Fountainhead and We, the Living--have been made into major motion pictures, and Rand's plays have been performed both on and off Broadway for decades. The reaction to Rand's ideas has been largely flattery and denunciation--flattery from those who like her ideas, and denunciation from those who don't. What both factions have failed to provide is precisely what is most needed: a careful analysis of her arguments. Without a Prayer: Ayn Rand and the Close of Her System is the first major book that engages Rand where she wished to be engaged--at the level of philosophical argument. Former disciples and friends have written both unflattering memoirs and flattering puff pieces about Rand, but such works contribute little to an understanding of her ideas. Without a Prayer is unique. It is a careful and thorough examination of Rand's ideas, not her life. |
The standard by which Without a Prayer judges Rand is her own standard: logical precision and consistency. Without a Prayer does not condemn Rand for being "too logical," as some critics have done, for the author is convinced that it is impossible to be too logical, just as it is impossible to be too virtuous or too healthy. Rather, Without a Prayer demonstrates that Rand was not nearly logical enough. Had she been more logical in her writing, she would have advocated ideas opposed to those she actually advanced. Without a Prayer is a meticulous dissection of Rand's arguments in epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, and politics. Whether one agrees or disagrees with Rand's conclusions, Without a Prayer furnishes a clear discussion of them, something neither her friends nor former friends have done.
John W. Robbins earned his doctorate at The John Hopkins University, has served as chief of staff to a Member of Congress, has been a college Professor, and is founder and president of The Trinity Foundation and The Freedom School.
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One misty winter day [near the end of her life], she [Ayn Rand] stood in front of her living room window, gazing silently at the city veiled in fog. Wearily, she said, "What was it all for?"
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REVIEWS OF THE BOOK
Without a Doubt: A Partial Review of John W. Robbins’ Without A Prayer, by Richard Bacon
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