Author: TeamAtlas

BY KURT KEEFNER

Do you enjoy learning from The Fountainhead? Now you can glean even more. In The Tao of Roark, Peter Saint-Andre explores key personal growth themes from Ayn Rand’s novel — themes immediately relevant to living the good life — with unusual insight and wisdom. This book honors, above all, the sacred fire of individuality. There’s just one catch: The book uses unusual means to achieve its unusual effects.

One of my favorite novels is Hermann Hesse’s The Glass Bead Game, set in a future European country where a whole province is devoted to science, scholarship, and art. The queen of the disciplines there is the glass bead game.

Hesse deliberately does not concretely visualize the game. In the novel, the game originated in our time as music students strung colored beads on a wire frame to represent musical themes. Over the centuries, however, the beads came to represent ideas — from architecture, music, philosophy, etc. — among which harmonies and variations on a theme can be represented and discovered.

The game is a way to experience the significance and connectedness of ideas. It is not a means for discovering new truths, except insofar as it reveals relationships that lay beneath the surface. It is an object of meditation and devotion.

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Attempts have been made to realize the glass bead game, but as far as I know, none have been successful. Until now.

Longtime Atlasphere member Peter Saint-Andre — information technologist, musician, and student of philosophy ancient and modern — has written a meditation on the ideas of Ayn Rand, and especially on the character of Howard Roark, that fits the bill. His book is titled The Tao of Roark: Variations on a Theme from Ayn Rand.

No, Saint-Andre was not actually trying to create the game, and his effort doesn’t use glass beads or pictures of any kind. It uses words, but it’s not a sustained argument. It contains several suggestions of arguments, more like provocative insights than anything proven. Rather, it is an attempt to give the reader an experience of a sensibility — the sensibility of the rational life here on earth.

A couple of clarifications: First, it’s not about the whole of Rand’s philosophy. The book is only 56 pages long; epistemology and esthetics do not fit into its rubric. It is about ethics, how man lives with himself, others, and nature. Second, Saint-Andre is not an Objectivist purist. He fills in some of Rand’s ideas in his own way, and he ventures into Taoism, as you might guess from the title. Either this bothers you or it doesn’t.

A couple of clarifications: First, it’s not about the whole of Rand’s philosophy. The book is only 56 pages long; epistemology and esthetics do not fit into its rubric. It is about ethics, how man lives with himself, others, and nature. Second, Saint-Andre is not an Objectivist purist. He fills in some of Rand’s ideas in his own way, and he ventures into Taoism, as you might guess from the title. Either this bothers you or it doesn’t.

Honesty is the essence of objectivity in a social context.

Saint-Andre conceives of his book as a set of variations on one of Rand’s themes. He compares it to Bach’s Goldberg Variations, where the variations are not so much on the melody as on the bass part. He gets off to a memorable start with the episode of the boy on the bike, from The Fountainhead. This is like Richard Strauss beginning Thus Spoke Zarathustra with the famous prelude.

A few pages later Saint-Andre introduces his bass part: The functions of the self, according to Howard Roark, are “to think, to judge, to act, and to feel.” Most of the rest of the book explores these functions and their relations to the virtues. Saint-Andre is well-schooled in Greek and Roman philosophy, so the focus on virtue comes naturally to him. Virtues for him have a general aspect, a social aspect, and a spiritual aspect.

For example, after an interesting discussion of the virtue of objectivity, the difficulty of which Saint-Andre is quite eloquent about, he turns to honesty. “Honesty is the essence of objectivity in a social context. Honesty is my recognition that you too are a thinking being…. My honesty enables you to be more objective.” This is a very interesting connection.

Note that Saint-Andre’s emphasis is different from Rand’s. She emphasizes the ways in which honesty is good for me, where he emphasizes the ways in which it is good for me, for you, and for us. This is refreshing.

His method is one of shining a light on a subject until you see it for yourself.

Saint-Andre follows up on the social meaning of objectivity with a discussion of being objective about oneself. A similar triad is offered for responsibility, its social aspect of respect, and then self-trust. There are similar such triads, all following the same pattern of general virtue — social implication — implication for the self. This pattern sets up a natural repeated rhythm.

Within each of his variations, Saint-Andre sets up smaller rhythms, as he teases out the meanings of Rand’s ideas. Usually, he uses statements and if-thens, but sometimes he uses a series of questions, as in the section on compassion, which is “the essence of passion in a social context”:

Can I give you empathy without pity, understanding without condescension, attentiveness without influence, commitment without exclusion? Can I help you bring out the best in you without seeking to direct your life? Can I see what is best for your life without seeking to impose it upon you? Can I treat all people with humanity, some with fellowship, fewer with friendship, fewer still with great love — without falling prey to the traps of in-groups and out-groups, judging without individual understanding, and the false alternative of deification versus demonization?

It goes on from there. I know some people who could stand to meditate on that passage. Sometimes I have been one of them.

Piling on ideas like this is Saint-Andre’s method of thickening the texture of his variations. You’re not supposed to wait for him to address these points. He does address some of them, but his method is not that of the syllogism, with premises plus verbal logic yielding conclusions.

Wait until the serenity is upon you and you can go lie down under a tree and let this book invade your consciousness like music.

Instead, his method is one of shining a light on a subject until you see it for yourself, at least if you’re primed by reading Rand. The book had the strange effect on me of filling my brain with a viewpoint — which I already held, but with some doubts and uneasiness — until there was no room for uncertainty. I think that’s a significant accomplishment.

Musically, it calls to my mind, not the Bach variations, which I’m not familiar with, but the powerful second movement of Brahms’s Second Piano Concerto.

This book is not going to work for everybody. Some readers will object to Saint-Andre’s excursion into Eastern philosophy — which I found interesting, without knowing much about the subject. Some of his connections are a bit strained. The non-discursive style is going to rub some of Rand’s readers the wrong way. And you do not want to read this book in the wrong mood, because it will irritate you.

So wait until the serenity is upon you and you can go lie down under a tree and let this book invade your consciousness like music. Better still, go for a long bike ride in the country and then read it. It will give you the experience of a great philosophy.

Getting your copy: The Tao of Roark is available in print edition or Kindle edition, as well as freely available for online reading at tao-of-roark.com.

Kurt Keefner is a writer and teacher who studied philosophy at the University of Chicago. He lives near Washington, DC with his wife. His first book, Killing Cool, will be published later this year. His recent essay “Free Will: A Response to Sam Harris” is available from Amazon. Visit his blog at kurtkeefner.com.

BY JOHN CHRISTMAS

We’ve long known the rock band Rush was influenced by Ayn Rand’s writings, including her sci-fi novelette Anthem. Now lyricist Neil Peart and co-author Kevin J. Anderson have written their own sci-fi/fantasy novel, itself inspired by a new Rush album. But how do the book — and the associated album — stand up to the legacy of Rush’s classic work?

It’s common knowledge that the rock band Rush was influenced by Ayn Rand’s philosophy. Drummer and lyricist Neil Peart got singer Geddy Lee and guitarist Alex Lifeson interested in Ayn Rand’s writings in the 1970s. The result was a string of songs — including entire concept albums — featuring themes of individuals breaking free from collectivist society.

In June 2012, Rush released its 19th studio album, Clockwork Angels. I am always skeptical when a great band gets older and keeps releasing new albums. How can the new albums possibly compare favorably to the old albums? But I was pleasantly surprised by Clockwork Angels. Musically and lyrically, to me, the new album stands up well against the band’s older work.

Of course, the musical battle between a guitar-wielding rebel and galaxy-ruling clerics in the classic Rand-inspired album 2112 may never be matched. But the new album has its own individualism-versus-collectivism theme, and approaches that theme from fresh angles.

The book contains several elements: the novel, the lyrics from the album, and an afterword.

And there is something completely new and appealing for book lovers, as well: Peart helped write a novel based on the album. Clockwork Angels: The Novel was released in September 2012.

The book contains several elements: the novel, the lyrics from the album, and an afterword. If you choose the print edition or Kindle edition, you can see artwork by long-time Rush album-cover artist Hugh Syme. If you choose the audio edition, you can hear Peart himself doing the narration.

Peart explains important background information in the afterword. He began discussions about a joint music and literary project with his friend Kevin J. Anderson 20 years ago. In 2010, they finally got started on a project: a novel to go with the Clockwork Angels album.

Anderson is a veteran sci-fi writer. His first published novel, Resurrection, Inc., came out in 1988. It was unofficially inspired by the Rush album Grace Under Pressure. More recently he is best known for his spinoff Dune and Star Wars novels.

Peart, having written the album lyrics, provided the skeleton of the plot and characters to Anderson. Anderson then used his story-building skills to fill out the novel. Their back-and-forth collaborative process went on for 18 months until the novel was completed.

Peart lists multiple literary influences in the afterword. Most prominent is Voltaire’s Candide, which provided the archetypal plot of an optimistic youth who sets out on adventures. The youth gets disillusioned but is happy to have experienced the adventures. Later in life, he winds up living on a peaceful farm. As I read Clockwork Angels: The Novel, before I reached the afterword, I thought of similar stories, including the legend of Cincinnatus and the history of George Washington with a hero fighting tyranny and winding up on a peaceful farm.

The novel fits into the “steampunk” sub-genre of science fiction, venturing into the fantasy genre as well.

The novel fits into the “steampunk” sub-genre of science fiction, venturing into the fantasy genre as well.

The authors created an alternate world where some things are futuristic and some things are archaic, suggesting science has progressed in a different way from how it has progressed in our world. Peart names Jules Verne and H. G. Wells as influences for this steampunk style.

Long-dead authors Verne and Wells were not, technically speaking, steampunk because a steampunk author is a modern author trying to write as if he were writing about the future from the viewpoint of someone like Verne or Wells. As such, the modern writer Terry Pratchett is even closer to the style of Clockwork Angels: The Novel.

However, Pratchett seems to write in steampunk style for the purpose of providing pure entertainment. Anderson and Peart use the style to communicate certain target themes.

The quality of Anderson and Peart’s writing is excellent. The pace is good. I didn’t find any slow, boring, or pointless sections. The prose gives a sense of movement, fitting nicely with the music, which, of course, I was playing while I read.

Clockwork Angels: The Novel is about a protagonist named Owen who, on the eve of his 17th birthday, is about to become a man in the collectivist society where he lives.

His whole life is being planned for him by the government: He will always work in the apple orchard in his home village, Barrel Arbor, and his love partner will be neighborhood girl Lavinia. He has no access to money and no use for money in the command economy, which provides people with plenty of apples but not much else.

We soon learn that Owen is special. He is different from the other people in the village. He is the only one with curiosity. He is the only one who refuses to live his life according to the dictates of the overlord Watchmaker.

Owen comes to a critical juncture in his life as he observes a flying “steamliner” racing past Barrel Arbor, bound for Crown City. Should he stay at home and await instructions from the Watchmaker about how to live his life, or should he break free by jumping on the steamliner and heading into the exciting capitol?

The prose gives a sense of movement, fitting nicely with the music…

Of course, Owen exercises freewill and chooses to jump on the steamliner. Otherwise, there wouldn’t be any novel.

He explores the world, including not only Crown City but also Poseidon City and the Seven Cities of Gold. He has experiences of profound wonder and disillusionment, including meeting a new woman, Francesca, and an alternative leader, the Anarchist.

I followed the novel through three main thematic lines. First, Owen is a person not content to follow instructions and believe propaganda but rather intent on learning about the world through exploration and observation. Second, Owen learns to be selective about whom to fall in love with. Third, there is a struggle going on in Owen’s world between order and chaos.

The first theme is a debate on the merits of conforming and staying at home versus rebelling and venturing forth. This is also a debate between going through life accepting what you are told versus insisting on direct observation of reality as the path to discovering the truth.

I perceived that the authors were trying to show that certain rare people have an urge to break free and have mind-expanding experiences themselves without allowing society to tell them what to do, and Owen is one of those people.

Throughout the novel, a dialog goes on in Owen’s head about what is better: a planned and peaceful life at home or an exciting and dangerous life exploring different lands and meeting different people.

Even though he consistently chooses to explore, the decision is not made easy for him. His explorations always result in disillusionment. The message from the authors that breaking free and exploring is the right thing for Owen is, of course, made more powerful by this disillusionment. If the explorations resulted in unambiguous benefit, then the choice to be an explorer would be non-controversial, and the novel would be less interesting.

For example, Owen finds the Seven Cities of Gold, and it is not spectacular in the way that he expected based on reading books. At first, the fabled cities are only a disappointment. However, he later realizes that the cities are special in an unanticipated way.

Interestingly, the novel switches back and forth on the subject of whether Owen’s non-conformist lifestyle is the result of freewill or destiny.

Fans of Ayn Rand tend to “choose freewill,” as Rush famously sang. And the pivotal moment when Owen chooses to jump on the steamliner and leave his village appears to have been a result of freewill.

But other sections of the novel imply otherwise. For example, Owen starts out, like his obedient collectivist neighbors, constantly checking his watch so that he can keep on the schedule planned by the Watchmaker. Later, as a traveler, he experiences the freedom of not having the watch and therefore not conforming to a schedule. However, the reason he does not have a watch is not because he threw it away but rather because it was stolen.

The novel switches back and forth on the subject of whether Owen’s non-conformist lifestyle is the result of freewill or destiny.

Could it be that Owen’s actions are predestined? Wait till the Watchmaker and Anarchist reveal their “destiny calculators” before answering.

The second theme concerns love and choosing a partner. Owen starts out in a relationship with conformist Lavinia but later switches and has a relationship with non-conformist Francesca.

Lavinia is a simple village girl. She believes that everyone should follow the instructions of the Watchmaker without question. She does not see any reason to explore and experience. She loves Owen, but she does not encourage him to live his dream. Rather, she tells him that his dream of exploring is stupid and he should stay at home.

Francesca is a carnival acrobat. She believes in freedom. That is fine with me. However, it was disturbing to me (and to Owen) to learn her definition of freedom. She believes both family life and productive work are trivial and anti-freedom. For example, she bruises apples as a way to tease Owen since he is from an apple orchard and is opposed to bruising apples. Since his job is picking apples, good performance means not bruising the apples. This would be true even in a market-driven economy. In fact, more so.

The authors’ objective seems to be demonstrating that a man who falls in love with his neighbor, when he is young, might benefit from traveling to new places and meeting new people since he might find a superior alternative that could smash his original perception of love.

In the prologue of the novel, we learn already that Owen will wind up with children and grandchildren. But which woman will be with Owen in the long run? Is it possible that one of the women could change and become a perfect partner?

The third theme is a debate about the merits of order versus chaos.

The two most influential people in Owen’s world are the Watchmaker and the Anarchist. The Watchmaker created and is running the collectivist government. He promotes order. The Anarchist hates collectivist government and wants to sabotage the Watchmaker’s efforts. He promotes chaos.

Note that what is going on is not a battle between capitalism (protection of private property) and socialism (no private property), because neither the Watchmaker nor the Anarchist can be described as capitalists.

Both the Watchmaker and the Anarchist are fascinating characters. Most of the novel is written from Owen’s perspective. There are sections written from the perspective of the Watchmaker and the Anarchist, however, where the reader gets amusing glimpses into the minds of these extremists.

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An interesting aspect of the novel is that the main struggle is not between Owen and one or both of these extremists. Rather, the main struggle is the two extremists fighting each other while Owen observes. Each extremist tries to use Owen as a weapon against the other, but Owen does his best to stay neutral.

It is tempting to think of the novel in a completely different way. Perhaps the Watchmaker (or Anarchist) is the protagonist, the other is the antagonist, and Owen is only the narrator.

However, Owen is driven in certain ways, mainly in his desire to learn and experience things for himself and resist subservience to others, and therefore he qualifies as the protagonist even though he is not necessarily on a quest to vanquish either the Watchmaker or the Anarchist.

Clockwork Angels: The Novel does not feature realistic characters with deep and complex personalities. If that is what you seek, look elsewhere. The various characters, including not only the Watchmaker and Anarchist but also minor characters, tend to be very transparent — even with names and occupations that match their personalities. I like this style because I like the ideas in a novel to be clearly evident, rather than hidden in subtlety. But this style isn’t for everyone.

I like this style because I like the ideas in a novel to be clearly evident, rather than hidden in subtlety. But this style isn’t for everyone.

Having said that, I see a heavy dose of reality present in this sci-fi/fantasy novel. There are real societies on our Earth that are similar to the Watchmaker’s world.

How many countries today are ruled by a control-freak leader who is brainwashing the population to think that his leadership is infallible? This isn’t only happening in Russia and China. It happens to some degree in Western democracies as well.

Most people go along with this sort of leadership, purposefully shutting their eyes to information contradicting the official proclamations. Good thing there are a few real-life people like Owen!

Overall, I greatly enjoyed the novel and recommend it to readers who enjoy the sci-fi/fantasy style and who want to expand their thinking. As the clockwork fortune-teller tells Owen at the end: “Tend your garden.”

John Christmas is the author of Democracy Society and is currently writing Democracy Society 2.

The cover photo at the top of this article was taken by Quinn Dombrowski.

BY KURT KEEFNER

Charlotte Bronte meets Ayn Rand in this 19th Century novel about a minister’s daughter who finds her independence and an industrialist who transforms from a despot to an enlightened capitalist. The author has an exciting way of presenting ideas, and her take on the Industrial Revolution is quite different from Dickens and other writers of the era. Is this a novel Ayn Rand fans could love?

The Industrial Revolution was one of the most important periods in human history, when intrepid entrepreneurs, using the latest science and technology, dramatically increased the productivity of human labor and ushered in an era of unprecedented prosperity that lifted all classes of society. It was also a time of dangerous, dirty working conditions and occasional famines.

Writings of the time usually focused on the negatives more than the positives. A genre of literature emerged, called the industrial novel, that dealt with the problems of the time. The most famous of these books is Charles Dickens’s Hard Times, with its rationalistic schoolmaster and heartless hypocrite of a mill owner. Such novels were usually sympathetic to the poor and indifferent or hostile to the industrialists.

Our author Mrs. Gaskell, despite her Christian values, which are frequently in evidence, clearly did appreciate the type of the industrialist.

Matters are different in an industrial novel by Elizabeth Gaskell. Entitled North and South, it deals with the conflict — and potential harmonization — of the gentrified South of England with the industrial North, circa 1855.

The heroine is Margaret Hale, daughter of an Anglican parson who has given up his clerical position in a rural southern parish because he can no longer in good conscience serve the Church of England. (Exactly why is not made clear, and is not the point.) He moves his family to the town of Milton-Northern, an industrial city based on Manchester.

The shock of the move is terrible for the Hales. Margaret’s mother, always delicate, starts to die slowly in the smoky air. Margaret is lonely and alienated and falls back on doing good works, befriending a family of mill workers named Higgins. Mr. Hale must earn a living by tutoring.

One of his students is a leading manufacturer of cotton fabric named John Thornton. Mr. Thornton had to leave school at about the age of fourteen when his father died in disgraced debt. He worked his way up to a position of success and now, at age thirty or so, would like to continue his education. Here is one of Margaret’s early impressions of Thornton’s appearance:

…the straight brows fell low over the clear, deep-set, earnest eyes, which, without being unpleasantly sharp, seemed intent enough to penetrate into the very heart and core of what he was looking at. The lines in the face were few but firm, as if they were carved in marble, and lay principally about the lips, which were slightly compressed over a set of teeth so faultless and beautiful as to give the effect of sudden sunlight when the rare, bright smile, coming in an instant and shining out of the eyes, changed the whole look from the severe and resolved expression of a man ready to do and dare anything, to the keen, honest enjoyment of the moment, which is seldom shown so fearlessly and instantaneously, except by children. (Oxford edition, p. 80)

You can see why so many female readers are in love with this character. Whatever flaws Mr. Thornton may have, and he does have some, this is not the face of some mere money-grubbing, worker-exploiting scoundrel out of Dickens.

Our author Mrs. Gaskell, despite her Christian values, which are frequently in evidence, clearly did appreciate the type of the industrialist. Here she has Thornton hold forth on the inventor of the steam hammer (who was in reality a friend of Gaskell’s):

And this imagination of power, this practical realization of a gigantic thought, came out of one man’s brain in our good town. That very man has it within him to mount, step by step, on each wonder he achieves to higher marvels still. And I’ll be bound to say, we have many among us who, if he were gone, could spring into the breach and carry on the war which compels, and shall compel, all material power to yield to science. (p. 81)

There are other passages almost as good as these two. Unfortunately, there is a passage where Mr. Thornton attributes his success to his Teutonic blood. It’s not clear whether he means this in a racist manner. He seems to be contrasting the culture of the north, the part of England least touched by the Norman Conquest, with the luxury-loving gentry of the south.

The general direction of the story is a convergence of disparate types.

Thornton is not without problems. He does not much relate to his hands (i.e., his workers) on a human level, but regards himself as their rightful despot during their working hours.

Gaskell refers to him once as willful; an example of this would be that he would not obey a law lessening air pollution, even though it would work to his financial advantage, because he resents the attempt of a distant government to rule over a business about which they know very little. (He had installed the pollution-reducing device before the law was passed.)

The central event in the story is a strike against all of Milton’s mill owners. Thornton brings in Irish strike breakers, which proves to be a bad idea, because they can’t operate the machines properly, and their presence provokes a riot among the starving workers in which Margaret is injured defending Thornton. Although Thornton is very brave through the whole affair, his judgment is bad and he damages his business. Clearly, he needs to change.

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But the point of the story is not to humble the northern industrialist. Margaret needs to change too. Thornton needs to overcome his pride and relate to his workers as human beings, while Margaret needs to overcome her passivity.

The life of a pampered and controlled girl in languid southern society proves stultifying to her. She thrives on the energy and purpose of Milton, even though she feels great sympathy for its less fortunate citizens, in keeping with her natural inclinations as a Christian.

The general direction of the story is a convergence of disparate types. Thornton and Margaret approach each other, Thornton and his hand Higgins build a human relation that inspires Thornton to reach out to his workers and respond when they reach out to him. Thornton becomes an enlightened capitalist.

The story is almost “dialectical” in that it concerns the resolution of seeming opposites: master and hands, male and female, life as exertion vs. life as appreciation of beauty, and North and South. This is an exciting way to present ideas.

I don’t want to give the wrong impression of the novel by going on about Thornton. He is not the primary character; Margaret is. The novel is as much about her family and the Higgins family as it is about him. But for fans of Ayn Rand’s writings, the main draw will be the manufacturer.

Margaret and Thornton have a wonderful antagonism-blossoms-into-love relationship, right out of Jane Austen. The ending is incredibly romantic without being overblown. And I prefer it to Jane Austen because the characters are, or want to be, productive.

I found North and South to be quite readable by Nineteenth Century standards. It’s not long-winded, as Hugo can be, nor idiosyncratic like Dickens and Dostoevsky. It does have some of the period’s scarlet blushes and hot tears, however.

Gaskell’s psychological insights are quite keen. One thing I liked about it was her ability to see everybody’s point of view, without being relativistic or all-forgiving in a Christian way.

The BBC made a four-hour miniseries out of the novel in 2004. I very much enjoyed it and it would be worth watching, even before reading the book. It has certain advantages and disadvantages compared to the novel. The major advantage is the visual realization of Milton and of Thornton’s mills, into which Gaskell never ventures. The power looms and the cotton fluff in the air are beautiful. The acting, especially by the stars who play Thornton and his mother, is very good.

The story is almost “dialectical” in that it concerns the resolution of seeming opposites: master and hands, male and female, life as exertion vs. life as appreciation of beauty, and North and South.

On the negative side, Margaret is a little miscast, too cherubic and pious-looking, not as proud and statuesque as the Margaret of the novel. And Thornton’s character is somewhat re-written to be more brooding and even violent, which he is not in the novel.

Call it the Bronte-ization of Elizabeth Gaskell, making Mr. Thornton more like Mr. Rochester or Heathcliff. It’s a legitimate re-interpretation of the same general idea though, and I have not felt a need to choose either book or miniseries over the other.

Let’s be clear: North and South is not an Ayn Rand novel. But it is a novel an Ayn Rand fan could love.

Kurt Keefner is a writer and teacher who studied philosophy at the University of Chicago. He lives near Washington, DC with his wife. His first book, Killing Cool, will be published later this year. His recent essay “Free Will: A Response to Sam Harris” is available from Amazon. Visit his blog at kurtkeefner.com.

The cover photo at the top of this article was taken by David JL.

BY MICHAEL MOELLER

Historical novels remain one of the few genres that capture the world-altering nature of big events, as well as the heroes (and villains) behind them. Set in the same time period as “War and Peace,” Jeffrey Perren’s new “Cossacks in Paris” is starkly different from Tolstoy’s classic, in characters and plot. So how does it measure up, by Randian standards?

Big events. That’s what I love about historical dramas.

These days, Hollywood and modern novels deflate the audience with an uninspiring miasma of small people, personal demons, and futile actions. Art — good art — is more than depression and depravity. Art offers the opportunity to wrench one from the humdrum of daily life and to elevate one’s spirit with heroes transforming the course of history, often facing down long odds.

Historical dramas remain one of the few genres that capture the world-altering nature of big events and the opportunity for heroism.

However, one of the drawbacks of many classic historical dramas, like Tolstoy’s War and Peace, is the lack of purposeful action driving the characters and plot. Tolstoy is stylistically brilliant in many respects, but the drama flatlines as the lead characters drift aimlessly through the trials and tribulations of the Russian aristocracy. Tolstoy’s characters are seemingly resigned to a fate outside the control of their individual decisions.

Cossacks in Paris covers the same historical period as War and Peace — from Napoleon’s march to Moscow to his subsequent retreat to Paris and ultimate demise. In contrast with underlying flaws of War and Peace, Jeffrey Perren’s novel integrates purposeful decisions and actions that breathes life into the drama and bonds the reader to the characters.

Those readers familiar with Rand’s novels will recognize — and applaud — the primary battle between reason and force.

The reader is first introduced to Breutier Armande, the protagonist, as a man intent on reshaping the future with his engineering perspicacity. Unfortunately for Breutier, his ambitions are thwarted by Napoleon’s grandiose and ill-fated designs to expand his power by conquering Russia.

However, all is not lost for Breutier when he is conscripted into Napoleon’s army. During Napoleon’s march to Moscow, Breutier meets a beautiful Finnish Countess, Kaarina, on a scouting trip to St. Petersburg. Timing proves once again a double-edged sword for Breutier, as his chance encounter with his ideal woman clashes with Alexander’s plans for the young beauty — to marry her off to a brutal Cossack adept at war named Agripin.

Alexander discovers a ready accomplice in Agripin, whose Rousseauian lust motivates him to have Kaarina — by any means necessary. Thus, the stage is set for the central conflict of the novel — a man-of-mind retaining his highest value against men-of-muscle, particularly his tenacious foe Agripin.

The following passage portrays the essence of Agripin, and his desire to conquer Kaarina — and reality — by brute force:

…Once the spy believed the document was genuine Agripin would be in a position to make his demands: land, a title, and Kaarina for a wife.
He had thought “wife,” but the word stood in his mind as “slave” would in another man’s.

Agripin’s rationality, if it can be called that, is limited to conniving his way into the spoils of war. This includes Kaarina, who he would rather chain to his bed than have her enter it voluntarily.

Unlike Agripin, Breutier’s efficacy emanates from the power of his mind. Whether evaluating the possibilities of a new railroad, or escaping a brush with the gallows, Breutier is propelled forward by reason. The passage below illuminates Breutier’s ultimate goal of being liberated from the tyrant’s boot:

No one to tell him “no you mustn’t, the Emperor will be annoyed.” No one interested in anything but “how can it be done?”, and “how much will it cost?”, and “when can it be completed?” rather than “who gave you permission?”

Those readers familiar with Rand’s novels will recognize — and applaud — the primary battle between reason and force. No, the novel’s plot does not possess the complexity of what happens when the men-of-mind go on strike. Instead, Cossacks in Paris embarks on the simpler approach of projecting this primary battle back in time using historical events.

While Cossacks in Paris does not carry the sweeping plot and character depth of Atlas Shrugged, Mr. Perren captures the Randian character element of efficacious action lacking in novels like War and Peace.

Whereas Tolstoy’s characters are passive pawns condemned to consequences dictated by events, Mr. Perren’s characters guide the events. While smaller in title and rank than Tolstoy’s characters, the characters in Cossacks in Paris loom larger in shaping the outcome of the events.

By seizing on this Randian element, the plot structure feels like a series of chess moves. Can Breutier convince Alexander that Agripin has betrayed the Coalition’s cause? Will Agripin’s espionage affect the outcome of the war, and thus allow him to acquire Kaarina as a trophy? Will Agripin fall for the ploy when Kaarina’s twin sister, Kaisa, stands in for her?

As each of these moves reconfigures the prospect of certain outcomes, one realizes that the war is a backdrop — almost as if a distraction — to the central conflict of Breutier retaining his queen, not acquiring Agripin’s. With each move and fleeting advantage before the opponent makes his next move, the reader is left gritting his teeth for a resolution, yet paradoxically wanting the drama to continue.

The struggle of Breutier and Kaarina to be together against the milieu of war machinations and a barbarous foe is portrayed best by Metternich’s following statement after observing the animosity between Breutier and Agripin:

Those rulers [Napoleon and Alexander] are merely fighting over a continent. The two young men over a woman. I daresay the latter will always be more passionately pursued than the former, much as it defies logic.

It may defy logic for somebody like Metternich, who is embroiled in political deceptions and a cunning pursuit of power, but it does not defy logic for those who seek the rational goal of a fulfilling romance.

Breutier may not make the fully calculated rational decisions of, say, Atlas Shrugged’s Francisco d’Anconia. However, the impetuousness of young love — such as pursuing Agripin and Kaarina across the Russian steppes, even though Breutier has no knowledge of the region and no initial plan to find Agripin and secure Kaarina from his clutches — distinguishes Breutier from the characters in Rand’s fiction.

Indeed, the reader finds himself tightly gripping the pages as the union of Breutier and Kaarina is constantly undermined by the political calculations of rulers, the switching allegiances during the uncertainty of war, and a Cossack intent on winning the prize, even though the prize has no desire to be his bloodlust trophy.

By seizing on this Randian element, the plot structure feels like a series of chess moves. Can Breutier convince Alexander that Agripin has betrayed the Coalition’s cause? Will Agripin’s espionage affect the outcome of the war, and thus allow him to acquire Kaarina as a trophy? Will Agripin fall for the ploy when Kaarina’s twin sister, Kaisa, stands in for her?

As each of these moves reconfigures the prospect of certain outcomes, one realizes that the war is a backdrop — almost as if a distraction — to the central conflict of Breutier retaining his queen, not acquiring Agripin’s. With each move and fleeting advantage before the opponent makes his next move, the reader is left gritting his teeth for a resolution, yet paradoxically wanting the drama to continue.

The struggle of Breutier and Kaarina to be together against the milieu of war machinations and a barbarous foe is portrayed best by Metternich’s following statement after observing the animosity between Breutier and Agripin:

Those rulers [Napoleon and Alexander] are merely fighting over a continent. The two young men over a woman. I daresay the latter will always be more passionately pursued than the former, much as it defies logic.

It may defy logic for somebody like Metternich, who is embroiled in political deceptions and a cunning pursuit of power, but it does not defy logic for those who seek the rational goal of a fulfilling romance.

Mr. Perren captures the Randian character element of efficacious action lacking in novels like War and Peace.

Breutier may not make the fully calculated rational decisions of, say, Atlas Shrugged’s Francisco d’Anconia. However, the impetuousness of young love — such as pursuing Agripin and Kaarina across the Russian steppes, even though Breutier has no knowledge of the region and no initial plan to find Agripin and secure Kaarina from his clutches — distinguishes Breutier from the characters in Rand’s fiction.

Indeed, the reader finds himself tightly gripping the pages as the union of Breutier and Kaarina is constantly undermined by the political calculations of rulers, the switching allegiances during the uncertainty of war, and a Cossack intent on winning the prize, even though the prize has no desire to be his bloodlust trophy.

Mr. Perren’s economical style keeps the pages turning and the reader craving a resolution.

So intense is the rivalry between the two that Agripin actually saves Breutier’s life during one of the battles — all so Agripin can preserve his desire to kill Breutier with his bare hands, as he tells Breutier.

Mr. Perren’s economical style keeps the pages turning and the reader craving a resolution. During the succession of battles and chess moves leading up to the synchronized climax of a fight over a woman intersecting with a war for that era’s center of civilization — Paris — a question seems to continually beat at the back of the reader’s mind: Will a man’s passionate pursuit of a woman prove more powerful than a ruler’s quest for an empire?

BY FREDERICK COOKINHAM

You’ve read Atlas Shrugged, right? Okay, what color is Dagny’s hair?

When I first read the book, I thought Dagny was a blonde. Then I looked again and saw, when Dagny is first introduced, that Rand calls Dagny’s hair “brown.” Not even “light brown,” just brown.

I was surprised. Others have had the same experience. I guess we’ve all seen too many Clairol commercials.

The problem here is not any failure on Rand’s part to put in the subtle touches; it’s just that we don’t notice the subtleties amid all the thunder — Rand’s own thunder, that is, followed by the thunder of the world’s reaction to Rand.

Read the scene between Dagny and Cherryl, just before Cherryl’s death (Chapter 4 of Part 3, hardcover and Centennial paperback page 888). Dagny reminds Cherryl that they are sisters. Cherryl replies, “No! Not through Jim!” And Dagny says, “No, through our own choice.”

We don’t notice the subtleties amid all the thunder.

That new and deeper meaning Dagny gives to her relationship to her sister-in-law shows the genius of Ayn Rand — it’s what makes this author famous and a never-to-be-forgotten experience for millions of young readers.

Dagny then expresses care and concern and tenderness to the abused and frightened Cherryl — all those qualities you have heard about Rand not possessing.

Here’s another moment in Atlas I’ll bet you don’t remember: Eddie, in one of his dialogues with the worker in the cafeteria (page 218), says that he was working at Dagny’s desk one day when she walked in and said, “Mr. Willers, I’m looking for a job. Would you give me a chance?”

And she laughed. Then she sat on the edge of her desk, telling Eddie to stay seated.

Pretty easy-going boss. Not a tyrant. Dagny is intense, in intense scenes, but there is one of those humanizing touches that Rand isn’t supposed to have in her books.

How many readers of Atlas remember Galt’s breakfast-making scene? If that scene makes it into Part III of the Atlas movies, you might notice it and see the humanizing touch. Galt makes breakfast for Dagny after she crashes in the valley.

He heroically fries eggs! He makes toast! With a single bound! You want humanizing touches? — there they are.

But Rand also integrates that little scene with the story and with Galt’s characterization: Dagny asks him whether he learned those kitchen skills from Dr. Akston. She met Akston in his diner, remember? Galt replies, “That, among other things.”

Here’s another one for Dagny: On page 81, Ellis Wyatt comes bursting uninvited into Dagny’s office. An unforgivable breach of office etiquette. Reading this at thirteen, I thought, Yeah, that’s the stereotyped so-called individualist — someone with passion but no manners. Stock character.

That’s the stereotyped so-called individualist — someone with passion but no manners.

But on page 440, Dagny is in the opposite situation. She is desperate to see Ken Danagger, but she waits nervously in his waiting room for hours. She will not barge into his office. He has a right to decide when to see her, and she will not violate that right.

That’s when I got it. Rand is deliberately setting up the same situation in order to say, See? That was the old idea of an “individualist,” and now here is my new idea of an individualist: Someone who sees the deeper meaning in individualism, someone who respects individual rights. Another new and deeper meaning.

Some more surprises in Rand:

Rand’s villains are supposed to be government employees, but the fact is the villains are as often businessmen — crony capitalists — as politicians and bureaucrats. The politics of the Atlas Shrugged villains is fascism or mercantilism, not socialism.

And they are old-money, Ivy-league types; you can tell from their nicknames, like Tinky Holloway (a bureaucrat and stooge of Orren Boyle, head of Associated Steel — read: US Steel in real life).

Galt’s Gulch is not supposed to be read as a model for all society. The people of the Gulch — no more than a thousand, Rand guessed, and more likely one or two hundred — are there by individual invitation and only for one month a year, so it’s more like a big party.

Renting out a car rather than lending it for free, Galt explains, is a custom that helps them rest from the things they came there to rest from. It’s not meant to be a rule for all people at all times.

Did you know that Galt mentions, in his speech, generosity as one of the virtues? And so does Dagny, on page 276.

Galt says people are taken advantage of because of their generosity and prodigality. Some people don’t seem to get the point that that means anyone — not just ambitious captains of industry.

Even people with little prodigality to give sometimes give what they can and are taken advantage of by their personal parasites. (That’s why Prof. Muhammed Yunnus’s Grameen Bank loans money only to women: Men in Bangladesh, he found, will spend the loan on booze and gambling while the wife does the work.)

Rand hated children, we are told, and we know this because there are no children in her novels. But there are. Did you know that Dominique is only nineteen when we first meet her in The Fountainhead? No wonder she’s screwed up — she’s still a brainy, neurotic college freshman not yet out of her teens. There are two kids in Galt’s Gulch, aged seven and four — and more in We the Living.

Rand’s novels have just a few children, but they have no elephants at all! That’s because she didn’t happen to be writing about elephants.

There are personal references in Galt’s speech that you will miss if you skip it, as some do. “Do you hear me, Dr. Robert Stadler?” “Do you hear me, my love?”

Rand’s heroes have no inner conflicts. That’s why she’s a bad writer! — you’ve heard.

Inner conflict is what the whole novel is about — the inner conflict of deciding to go on strike. Hank and Dagny are seen agonizing over this decision, and Francisco, and even Galt too.

Inner conflict is what the whole novel is about.

The conflict had to be between each hero and the others and between each hero and himself because the villains are not, and cannot be, strong enough to threaten the heroes that deeply.

Especially Jim Taggart, whose evil is so profound, his evasions so reckless, that he couldn’t pour piss out of a boot if there were instructions on the heel.

That’s because of how Rand had by that time decided to define evil. That point needs a whole article, so … to be continued.

Rand’s heroes are a sign of bad writing because they are godlike and not human.

You’ve heard that one. But as Dr. Akston tells Dagny in the valley (page 791): “Every man builds his world in his own image.”

Rand is not making gods of her characters or of herself. She is making a god … of you.

Frederick Cookinham gives New York City walking tours, available through In Depth Walking Tours — including five on the subject of Ayn Rand and six on Revolutionary War sites. He was interviewed at the Atlasphere in 2005. He is the author of the book The Age of Rand: Imagining an Objectivist Future World and has also written articles for The New Individualist, Nomos, Full Context, and The Pragmatist.

BY KURT KEEFNER

Each year for the past decade, Open Court Publishing Company has released a new book in its “Ideas Explained” series. This year they are offering a volume on Ayn Rand, to sit right beside Sartre, Heidegger, and Rawls. Does the book do justice to its subject? Let’s take a closer look.

Oh, no, not another book about Ayn Rand! Is this really necessary?

Well, actually, yes, it is. In fact, it’s a good thing.

The book is Ayn Rand Explained: From Tyranny to Tea Party, by Ronald E. Merrill, revised and updated by Marsha Familaro Enright (Open Court, 2013). It is part of a series explaining great philosophers, and is a revised edition of Ronald Merrill’s 1991 work The Ideas of Ayn Rand.

The book surveys Rand’s life, candidly including her affair with Nathaniel Branden, her novels, and selected areas of her philosophy. In addition, it treats a few subjects that fall outside the usual taxonomy of ideas, such as Rand’s style and her relationship with Nietzsche.

The book’s original author, Merrill, died in 1998. With this edition, Marsha Enright has added some material at the front of the book, dusted off some of its body, and occasionally filled in her own opinion, especially on some of Merrill’s controversial points. The result is sometimes awkward but always interesting.

The awkwardness is a real problem, unfortunately. Although Enright tells the reader in a general way what her contribution to Merrill’s original text is, it remains difficult at times to discern where Merrill leaves off and where Enright begins.

It would have been better to present Merrill’s work in its entirety and to add front and back matter and a running commentary of footnotes.

I’m not sure whether this quasi-scholarly approach to Merrill’s work would have fit into Open Court’s “Explained” series, however, since it would have made it look as if the focus was on Merrill rather than Rand.

The way I would characterize Ayn Rand Explained is to say that it is “sympathetic without being sycophantic.” Merrill, whose book this mostly is, obviously gave a lot of thought to Rand’s fiction and her ideas, although he was neither a philosopher nor a literary critic, he generated many interesting insights into her work. Some are rather quirky, but even these are thought provoking.

The depth of coverage is a bit uneven: Sometimes it seems to presuppose little or no familiarity with Rand; sometimes it covers academic debates over Rand’s ethics and politics that only a fairly advanced student might be interested in.

The way I would characterize Ayn Rand Explained is to say that it is “sympathetic without being sycophantic.”

This work is definitely not a place where a novice should begin. It is not Ayn Rand for Dummies. In addition, it contains many spoilers of Rand’s fiction.

Lastly, the quirkiness is just too much at times. Merrill offers up a theory that the thirty-six identified characters in Galt’s Gulch represent the thirty-six virtuous people who must be on Earth at any one time if the God of the Old Testament is not to destroy it.

Since Rand demonstrated zero knowledge of or interest in the Bible, at least in her published writings, this seems highly unlikely — and Enright says as much. As something of an autodidact myself, I can tell you that the great danger of autodidacticism is eccentricity, and Merrill evinces that quality. Of course, the great virtue of autodidacticism is freshness, and Merrill evinces that as well.

One topic he covers in medium depth, which a person only slightly familiar with Rand would be able to follow and appreciate, is Rand’s interest in Nietzsche. One of Merrill’s “story arcs” is how Rand fell in, and then out, of love with Nietzsche. Rand discovered Nietzsche as a young woman and was quite taken with some of his ideas.

Merrill tries very hard to integrate Rand’s thought into useful chunks.

There’s far more to Nietzsche than some people realize, and Rand seems only to have been smitten with his ideas about greatness and his anti-altruist/collectivist ideas.

She apparently was always uncomfortable with the degree to which Nietzsche rejected reason, although as Merrill (or is it Enright?) points out, she tried a bit to reconcile her view of the matter with Nietzsche’s, as when she wrote in her journal in 1934, “reason is instincts made conscious” (italics in original).

It would have been interesting if Merrill had connected this idea to the character of Howard Roark, who in some ways seemed to embody it, as his independence was originally a matter of character (“instincts”), with the philosophy only coming later.

Merrill does a good job of tracing Nietzsche’s influence on Rand, especially in We the Living, even though he didn’t have access to most of the material in her journals, which weren’t published until well after The Ideas of Ayn Rand. Unfortunately, he does state that Nietzsche was in a sense a defender of reason. This is not true in any sense a follower of the mature Ayn Rand would recognize.

Nietzsche’s ideal is not the man of reason, but the man of overflowing health. For Nietzsche, the representative of reason is Socrates — who is strangely ignored in Objectivist writing — and Nietzsche repeatedly attacks Socrates as a decadent. In Nietzsche’s view, reason is something you resort to only when your instincts have failed. Nietzsche might have respected Roark, but he would have had nothing but contempt for John Galt.

Merrill tries very hard to integrate Rand’s thought into useful chunks. The love affair with Nietzsche is one example. Another one is Rand’s idea of the sanction of the victim, which claims that if you are exploited, it is because you gave your exploiter the power to do so, and that you can withdraw your sanction at any time.

Merrill regards this principle as the key to Atlas Shrugged and a turning point in Rand’s thinking as great as her break with Nietzsche. It resolves Rand’s decades-long conundrum about how a good man can live in a corrupt society, a conundrum which was a source of personal anguish for her. Merrill does a good job of explaining the theme of “alienation” and despair over the state of the world, especially as it manifests itself in The Fountainhead.

It is a very good thing that Merrill tries to identify large-scale themes in Rand’s work. I don’t always agree with him, but it is important that people do this kind of “chewing” of Rand’s thought, to use Rand’s own term. Another example would be how he characterizes Rand’s stylistic motifs, such as Love of Paradox and Shocking the Middle Class. Passages like this help us gain perspective on Rand by naming what she does.

The book concludes with a section on the prospects of Objectivist thought in American culture. It correctly points out that it is not merely government which must be reformed in order to accommodate reason in human life, but all institutions, including the family and schools. Marsha Enright, with her lifelong involvement in education, would surely know about this.

The book’s emphasis on all institutions represents definite progress over the way in which many Objectivists seem to pin their hopes entirely on politics.

In conclusion, Ayn Rand Explained is a fresh, if idiosyncratic, treatment of a great writer and will give any reader versed in Rand’s ideas a lot to ponder and investigate.

Kurt Keefner is a writer and teacher who studied philosophy at the University of Chicago. He lives near Washington, DC with his wife. His first book, Killing Cool, will be published later this year. His recent essay “Free Will: A Response to Sam Harris” is available from Amazon. Visit his blog at kurtkeefner.com.

The cover photo at the top of this article was taken by Jim Trodel, who takes beautiful photographs.

BY JOE DUARTE

With the release of “Man of Steel,” the Superman franchise has been given new life. For generations, he has been one of America’s most iconic heroes. But should he be? How does he stack up, as a role model and embodiment of what we should admire most?

Imagine that you’re a neurosurgeon. You knew that this is what you wanted to do with your life since you were 14 years old.

You’ve undergone more than eight years of intensive medical training and residency and have developed some very rare skills — you can cut into a person’s skull and conduct extremely precise and complex surgery on the brain, using the latest imaging and surgical tools, saving a few dozen lives a year.

You love what you do — you love conducting surgeries, publishing research articles, and helping your patients.

Now imagine that one day you wake up and have superhuman strength. Also, you can fly. How would this impact your life? How would it impact what you are able to do in the operating room?

It would have virtually no impact. Since you love being a neurosurgeon, you would continue to be a neurosurgeon. And super strength or flying ability won’t help you at all in the operating room.

In Man of Steel, Superman (Henry Cavill) is sent to Earth as an infant. His parents send him so that he can escape the death of his home planet, Krypton. For some reason, this civilization that has traversed space for centuries can only launch one baby into space — the rest of the population is mysteriously unable to get off the planet.

What’s more interesting is why he was sent to earth. His father (Russell Crowe) declares, “You will give the people an ideal to strive towards … In time, they will join you in the sun. In time, you will help them accomplish wonders.” This premise is consistent with past Superman films — the people of Earth need to be saved or transformed.

Assuming we actually needed to be saved, the above mission sounds like that of a great thinker, perhaps a philosopher, scientist, or Steve Jobs. Superman is none of those things – he’s strong, and he can fly. How would a strong flying man give us an ideal to strive towards? What does Superman do that we should or could emulate?

Well, Superman is essentially a cop and fireman. He confronts bad guys and overpowers them, or rescues people from drowning. In the film, he gets in a lot of knock-down, drag-out slugfests with General Zod (Michael Shannon) and his crew — Kryptonian criminals who escaped their sentence and arrive on Earth when Superman is a young man.

“You will give the people an ideal to strive towards … In time, they will join you in the sun. In time, you will help them accomplish wonders.”

It bears repeating that Superman is a cop. And a good Samaritan. That’s all he is. He is not a better person than your average good cop or rescue worker. He doesn’t embody any sort of moral ideal that many millions of humans don’t already embody. You very likely know several people who are at least as noble as Superman, perhaps even yourself.

On further consideration, Superman is less of a hero than your average cop or fireman. Superman is generally invulnerable. He can’t get hurt. He can’t die. He takes no risks when he saves people. Even when facing his own kind — like Zod — he is much less vulnerable than a cop responding to a shooting.

So Superman is a really strong guy who flies around saving people from fires, drowning, and traffic accidents with no risk of harm to himself. An ideal to strive towards? In the NFL, coaches have a term for players who are pretty average, just serviceable enough to plug into a game when a starter gets injured: JAG. Just A Guy. Morally and philosophically, Superman is just a guy.

Superman’s morality is simple-minded altruism.

And he’s a very destructive guy. In at least one scene, he wantonly destroys people’s property when he clearly doesn’t need to. He’s wrapped up with Zod outside of Smallville, with wide-open fields all around — so he chooses to specifically fly Zod through Smallville, destroying several buildings. It’s as though he has no intuitive understanding that a person’s car or house or business is very important to that person’s life and goals, and that destroying those things severely harms their owners.

In one scene, Superman’s wanton destruction almost certainly kills innocent people — assuming that buildings generally have people in them. Granted, these scenes are probably thoughtless artifacts of special-effects-driven moviemaking, but we probably shouldn’t become desensitized to scenes where our heroes must certainly be killing innocent people (e.g. see The Hulk).

Superman’s morality is simple-minded altruism — go fly around and find people who are in trouble and use super-strength to save them. As such, it’s a very reactive, second-handed morality. Superman doesn’t create anything. He doesn’t introduce new ideas or inventions that will change the world. He just reacts, on a merely physical level, to happenstance. He’s earth’s Whac-A-Mole.

What do we need him for? If we thought deeply about the vexing problems facing the world, and we converged on possible solutions, would we conclude: “You know, we could really fix this mess if we just had one super strong dude who could fly. In a cape.”?

This point exposes the pointlessness of action heroes. Muscles don’t change the world. The earth is not suffering from the lack of a Supercop. To change the world, Superman would need Super Brains — which would make his physical strength superfluous.

Ideas change the world. If you had a son, would you want him to be super strong or super smart? Would you want him to be a flying Band-Aid, constantly at the mercy of random events and tragedies, or would you want him to have a life of his own?

To be fair, my critique shouldn’t single out Man of Steel — it’s no worse than the rest of the Superman franchise. Kevin Costner does a fine job of playing Superman’s earth-father, a tender man who embodies what small-town Americans like me mean when we say someone is “good people.”

I can’t fault Henry Cavill’s performance. I mean, he was given the job of playing a flying hunk — what do you want from the man? Superman has never been a complex character. Cavill’s acting ability will be tested in other future roles.

Ultimately, Superman is pointless because we don’t need to be saved by action heroes.

Michael Shannon adeptly portrays the evil archvillain, but his motives are strange — slaughter all of us and give birth to a new Krypton. You would think he would pay attention to the exoplanet research — the sky of is full of stars with potentially habitable planets.

And the fact that Kryponians are evidently homo sapiens is one of those 1930s comic cobwebs, but it’s hard to buy into a universe where Richard Dawkins and Charles Darwin don’t exist, and first contact with alien life seems to have the same news impact as a terrorist bombing.

Ultimately, Superman is pointless because we don’t need to be saved by action heroes. We are surrounded by real heroes — entrepreneurs, scientists, artists, cops, your neighbors, your kids. And we can already fly — look up.

José Duarte is earning a PhD in Social Psychology at Arizona State University. He can be reached at joe@joseduarte.com.

BY KIRSTI MINSAAS

Today we’re bombarded with movies depicting comic book heroes and CGI action heroes. How often do we find a movie with a hero so authentic and believable that his character becomes an object of contemplation for its own sake? Ayn Rand thought this was the primary purpose of portraying moral ideals in fiction. And it’s just what we find in Rob Roy.

The outstanding 1995 movie Rob Roy was released recently on Blu-ray. Directed by Michael Caton-Jones, it stars Liam Neeson as the early 18th century Scottish Highland hero Robert Roy MacGregor. The transfer to Blu-ray is excellent, doing full justice to the film’s magnificent cinematographic rendering of the Scottish Highlands. For that reason alone it is worth buying, even if you own the DVD.

But the new release also provides an opportunity to watch this historical epic in a high-quality format that enhances the imaginative experience it offers. Since Rob Roy has already been reviewed at Atlasphere, I shall restrict myself to appraising what I see as one of the film’s greatest virtues: its probing exploration of the theme of honor.

Since Rob Roy’s premiere in 1995, many other movies have been released that depict historical epic heroes as well as comic book heroes and thriller action heroes. So for anyone who loves to watch heroic dramas, there is no shortage of films to satisfy a craving for larger-than-life heroes. Rob Roy, however, is distinct in giving us a heroic tale in which the events and characters are presented from a clear and incisive moral perspective.

Drawing on the real life of Robert Roy MacGregor (1671–1734), the screenwriter Alan Sharp skillfully adapts the historical material to fashion a hero who, in his resistance to the corrupt and violent society in which he finds himself, not only displays exceptional heroic qualities but also emerges as a man of deep moral convictions. According to Sharp, Rob Roy was conceived as a Western set in the Scottish Highlands.

Like the Old West, the Scottish Highlands in the early 18th century was a lawless country, resisting the imposition of the legal system that governed the Lowlands. This setting thus forms a suitable background for the portrayal of a hero who, in the absence of law, acts according to a personal code of honor. But Rob Roy goes further than any Western I know of by presenting a hero who is not just guided by an ideal of honor, but is passionately committed to this ideal, making it the ruling principle of his life.

In its portrayal of a distinctly moral hero, Rob Roy conforms to Ayn Rand’s Romantic credo that the highest purpose of a fictional work is to project a moral ideal, or, as she liked to phrase it, to hold up an image of “man as he might be and ought to be.” But whereas Rand, in her own fiction, aimed to present a universal moral ideal — personified in heroes who possess virtues she regarded as essential to human flourishing at any time or in any place — Rob Roy gives us a hero whose virtues are intimately bound up with the time and place in which he lives.

The prefatory text at the beginning of the movie alerts us to the special significance of honor during this time period. In the early 1700s, it notes, the centuries-old clan system in Scotland was slowly being extinguished due to “famine, disease and the greed of great Noblemen” and the fact that many Scots, as a result, were emigrating to the Americas. Further, it states that the film’s story “symbolises the attempt of the individual to withstand these processes and, even in defeat, retain respect and honor.”

This emphasis on honor as the individual’s effort to hold on to his values in a time of historical upheaval makes Rob Roy a moving lament on a vanishing way of life, represented by Rob and the Highlanders. But it is also a celebration of the moral ideals peculiar to this way of life.

It is worth noting that the representation of honor in Rob Roy reflects codes of conduct widely current during the 18th century. The standard view was that honor is a quality of moral nobleness and integrity, residing in a person’s character. In Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary of the English Language (1755), for example, honor is defined as “nobility of soul, magnanimity, and a scorn of meanness.” This dates back to Aristotle, who similarly linked honor to the virtue of magnanimity.

For Aristotle, however, honor was primarily an attitude of esteem or admiration bestowed, by others, on a man of great worthiness. This notion of honor also gained currency during the 18th century. But, under the influence of a decadent aristocracy, it often lost its moral import and decayed into a claim to worthiness derived from nobility of class rather than nobility of soul, something a person of high rank saw as his rightful due by virtue of his superior social position, regardless of moral merit.

For Rob, honor is above all a matter of self-respect, grounded in his own sense of moral worth, independent of class or how he is judged by other people.

In the figure of Rob Roy, we see an honor that fully accords with the conception of honor as a moral quality. Interestingly, it also accords with Ayn Rand’s statement in her West Point address in 1974 that “Honor is self-esteem made visible in action.”

For Rob, honor is above all a matter of self-respect, grounded in his own sense of moral worth, independent of class or how he is judged by other people. This is reflected in his words to his sons that “All men that have honor are kings, but not all kings have honor…. Honor is what no man can give you and none can take away. Honor is a man’s gift to himself.” His words also indicate that he sees honor as an essentially selfish virtue, marked by a person’s unswerving loyalty to his own principles of right conduct.

What follows includes some mild spoilers, but nothing that should ruin the experience for most first-time viewers.

An important aspect of Rob’s dedication to honor is that it is an integral part of his role as clan-chief. This is demonstrated in the opening scene, where Rob and some of his men hunt down a band of Highland thieves who have stolen cattle owned by the powerful Marquis of Montrose and protected by Rob, working for Montrose. Singling out the leader of the band, Rob kills him in a man-to-man fight, an act that shows him as a leader of decisive, even ruthless, action. But it also shows him as a leader unwilling to resort to unnecessary violence as he lets the rest of the band go free, recognizing that they are stealing because of famine and poverty, not because they are bad people.

This humane quality of Rob’s honor is accentuated in the following scene. Here we see him as a man capable of deep compassion, disturbed by the sight of women and children in his own clan suffering from hunger, ill health, and coldness. Feeling, as a leader, responsibility for the well-being of his clan members, he decides to try and alleviate their plight by taking up a loan from Montrose in order to buy and sell cattle at a profit — a plan that fails because of the successful scheme to rob him of that loan by two of Montrose’s henchmen: the thoroughly debased English fop Archibald Cunningham and the sly and conniving factor Killearn.

Rob’s concern with honor is also exhibited in his caring and loving devotion to his wife, Mary MacGregor, herself a woman of great honor. As he tells his sons, “Women are the heart of honor, and we cherish and protect it in them.” Rob here reveals an idealizing attitude towards women that harks back to chivalric ideals of courtly love. But in the non-courtly world of the Scottish Highlands, his chivalric sentiment is manifested in a warm and sensual love relationship with his wife rather than knightly idolization of a lady from afar. “Do you know how fine you are to me, Mary MacGregor?” Rob asks his wife, expressing a love that in its revering affection contrasts starkly with the derisive view of love presented in the rakish Cunningham, who, after having made a servant girl pregnant, responds to the girl’s declaration of love with the remark: “Love is a dunghill, Betty, and I am but a cock that climbs upon it to crow.”

But the most salient feature of Rob’s honor is his integrity, his pride in being a man who cannot be bought or made to compromise. This is highlighted in the pivotal scene with Rob and Montrose, where Rob, having defaulted on the loan from Montrose after the money has been stolen from him, declines Montrose’s offer to acquit him of his debt if he is willing to bear false witness against another prominent nobleman, the Duke of Argyll. In doing so, however, Rob insults Montrose, stating that “What you have asked is below me as it should be beneath Your Lordship.” Stunned by this disrespectful affront to his lordly superiority, Montrose orders Rob’s arrest. Although Rob is able to escape, the result is that he is declared an outlaw and his family brutally driven from their home.

This confrontation between Rob and Montrose brilliantly dramatizes the opposed views of honor as nobility of soul versus nobility of class.

This confrontation between Rob and Montrose brilliantly dramatizes the opposed views of honor as nobility of soul versus nobility of class. In the pointed clash of values between the two men, we see, demonstrated in action, the contrast between the principled nature of Rob’s honor and the perverted sense of honor cultivated by a corrupt aristocracy represented by men like Montrose. For a vain and cunning cynic like Montrose, nobility of soul has no psychological reality and no practical value, only the nobility of rank, with its unfounded claim to worthiness.

At the same time, the scene marks the major turning point of the plot, as it launches Rob on his career as an outlaw thief, earning legendary fame as the “Robin Hood of the Highlands” who steals from the rich to give to the poor. But even this is presented as consistent with Rob’s honor, since his decision to steal from Montrose is to harm him economically, in retaliation against the harm Montrose has done to him and his family and thus to ensure, as he tells his outraged clan, that “Honor will be satisfied.”

It cannot be denied that much of the dramatic color of Rob Roy derives from its coterie of several intriguing villains. Greatly contributing to this are supreme performances from Tim Roth as Cunningham and John Hurt as Montrose. Tim Roth, especially, excels in his portrayal of foppish decadence. Yet unlike many other movies that pit noble goodness against depraved villainy, the villains do not steal the show. In Rob Roy, it is — at least for this viewer — the hero that takes center stage.

One reason for this is the sheer power of Liam Neeson’s performance in the lead role. With his special ability to convey rugged strength softened by a gentle and sensitive demeanor, he makes Rob Roy a commanding presence throughout the movie.

But most of all, this Highland hero captures our interest because of the moral depth of his characterization. In Rob Roy, we get a larger-than-life hero we can actually believe in as a real human being. Unlike the many comic book heroes that dominate the screen today, his heroic stature does not derive from any superhuman qualities, but from his profound commitment to his moral values. At the same time, he is no paragon of flawless virtue. While the film invites us to admire him for his unyielding dedication to his honor, it also makes us see him in a more critical light as a man whose intransigence exacts a terrible cost through the suffering it brings upon himself, his family, and his clan.

His heroic stature does not derive from any superhuman qualities, but from his profound commitment to his moral values.

Yet the flawed aspects of Rob’s honor are substantially toned down. In fact, through his wife Mary we are urged to view his flaws with some mildness, as an ineliminable part of his virtue. Despite the dire consequences of her husband’s unbending nature, she concedes on several occasions that it is what makes him the noble man he is and the man she loves.

Especially poignant is the scene with Mary and the Duke of Argyll where Mary, after Rob has been captured by Montrose, visits the Duke to plead for help in obtaining Rob’s release. She reveals to him that the original reason for Rob’s capture was his refusal to denounce the Duke to Montrose. When the Duke wonders why he would do this, Mary replies that he did it “not for Your Grace, but for his own honor, which he holds dearer than myself or his sons, his clan or kin, and for which I have oft chided him. But it is him and his way, and were he other, he would not be Robert Roy MacGregor.”

Still less would he be a man worthy of our highest admiration.

In her aesthetic theory, Ayn Rand stressed that the primary purpose of fictional projections of a moral ideal is, not moral instruction, but contemplation, viewed as an end in itself. What the portrayal of a moral ideal gives us, she urged, is first of all the pleasure of looking up to a hero, of contemplating a concretized image of man at his best, as he might be and ought to be, irrespective of what we may learn from it.

Rob Roy is a film that offers such pleasure. To some, the ideal its hero represents may seem quaint and irrelevant in our modern world. But this should not prevent one from taking pleasure in watching this noble Highlander, and to admire him as an exemplar of a dedication to moral values that, in its heroic grandeur, transcends the limits of his particular historical context.

Kirsti Minsaas is a Norwegian literary scholar. She has a Doctoral Degree in Literature from the University of Oslo, where she also has taught British literature. Her dissertation was on Aristotle’s Poetics and Shakespearean tragedy, and she has published several articles on Renaissance literature and poetics. She has, in addition, given lectures on Ayn Rand’s fiction and aesthetic theory, both in Europe and the US. Her articles on Ayn Rand have been published in the essay-collection The Literary Art of Ayn Rand (The Objectivist Center, 2005) and The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies. Now retired, she is currently working on a book about the Romantic vision of Ayn Rand’s fiction.