A combination philosophical exegesis, sociological study, and political tract, this monograph examines Ayn Rand's impact on the sexual attitudes of self-identified Objectivists in the movement to which she gave birth and the gay subculture that she would have disowned.
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Rand's Objectivism continues to attract strong individualists who differ from the heterosexual norm. Among the people Sciabarra interviews, ... members of the movement are more able than Rand to separate personal judgments of taste and value from rational judgments of moral and ethical behavior. ... The most fascinating part to me is the section 'Male Bonding in the Randian Novel,' in which Sciabarra and others describe Rand's view of 'love' between the men in her novels as confused, even self-contradictory. I remember thinking when I read The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, 'If this weren't Rand, I'd swear there were homoerotic overtones here.' Apparently, others have had the same thought. You might be surprised to read what Rand had to say about the relationship between Wynand and Roark. I certainly was! ... To make moral pronouncements based on personal taste is contrary to the individualism that was Rand's signature personality trait and the cornerstone of her philosophy of life. ... Sciabarra calls for a new understanding of Objectivism that identifies sexuality as simply one more dimension of diversity that strong-minded individualists can celebrate. --Patrick Quealy, Liberty Magazine
"The full monograph stands at sixty-two pages long. Although very interesting on its own terms, the book inadvertently serves mostly to support a principle we may express as an epigram: 'The mere touch of a giant raises welts on an ordinary person.' The giant is Ayn Rand (and to a lesser extent, Nathaniel Branden). The ordinary people are the gay and lesbian Objectivists they touched with their wrong-headed remarks about homosexuality being 'immoral' and 'disgusting.' Sciabarra's book is a chronicle of gigantic misbehavior and ordinary injuries, but it also holds out some hope for a new generation." --Kurt Keefner, The Atlasphere
Rand's "strongly negative view of homosexuality . . . influenced many of her followers, leading some gays to remain in the closet or try therapy in the vain hope of changing their orientation. . . . Untangling the story of how Rand's views were gradually put aside or corrected by her successors is the subject of a new monograph by New York University scholar Chris Matthew Sciabarra, Ayn Rand, Homosexuality, and Human Liberation. ... As it turns out, Rand's gripping novels and some of her essays seem destined to have a long and productive influence, while her incidental personal preferences and tastes are likely to be completely forgotten by the next generation. No one could wish things otherwise." --Paul Varnell, Chicago Free Press
"The full monograph stands at sixty-two pages long. Although very interesting on its own terms, the book inadvertently serves mostly to support a principle we may express as an epigram: 'The mere touch of a giant raises welts on an ordinary person.' The giant is Ayn Rand (and to a lesser extent, Nathaniel Branden). The ordinary people are the gay and lesbian Objectivists they touched with their wrong-headed remarks about homosexuality being 'immoral' and 'disgusting.' Sciabarra's book is a chronicle of gigantic misbehavior and ordinary injuries, but it also holds out some hope for a new generation." --Kurt Keefner, The Atlasphere
Rand's "strongly negative view of homosexuality . . . influenced many of her followers, leading some gays to remain in the closet or try therapy in the vain hope of changing their orientation. . . . Untangling the story of how Rand's views were gradually put aside or corrected by her successors is the subject of a new monograph by New York University scholar Chris Matthew Sciabarra, Ayn Rand, Homosexuality, and Human Liberation. ... As it turns out, Rand's gripping novels and some of her essays seem destined to have a long and productive influence, while her incidental personal preferences and tastes are likely to be completely forgotten by the next generation. No one could wish things otherwise." --Paul Varnell, Chicago Free Press
About the Author
Chris Matthew Sciabarra received his Ph.D. in political theory, philosophy, and methodology from New York University. He is the author of the "Dialectics and Liberty Trilogy," which includes Marx, Hayek, and Utopia (State University of New York Press, 1995), Ayn Rand: The Russian Radical (Penn State Press, 1995), and Total Freedom: Toward a Dialectical Libertarianism (Penn State Press, 2000). He is also co-editor, with Mimi Reisel Gladstein, of Feminist Interpretations of Ayn Rand (Penn State Press, 1999), and a founding co-editor of The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies.
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7 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Thank goodness someone has the guts and intellectual courage to write on a subject that's so wrongly been verboten in Objectivist circles for decades upon decades.
While the book is encouraging to homsexual individuals interested in Objectivist philosophy, it is painfully, niggardly brief! I'm sure there's a bigger book on this subject, Mr. Sciabarra. Hint, hint.
The point of the book is simply to announce homosexuality is a positive value in Objectivism, or, at least it's not a negative. (It's been years actually since I have read this book. What I'm stating here is from memory of it.) All of Ayn Rand's standing on a soapbox in a New York park denouncing the homosexual as immoral aside, her Objectivist philosophy contains nothing, asserts Chris Sciabarra, to mar the value of the life of a homosexual man or woman; in fact, Objectivst philosophy and homosexuality are surprisingly well-suited for one another. To be free and gay in an Objectivist way is positively liberating -- or can be -- is what Sciabarra's book is meaning to say.
This book, while a positive experience to read, is merely a Dutch thumb in a huge hole of Objectivist homophobia and prejudice (or any religion, really). Not only is more wanting to be said on the subject, more is needing to be said.
While the book is encouraging to homsexual individuals interested in Objectivist philosophy, it is painfully, niggardly brief! I'm sure there's a bigger book on this subject, Mr. Sciabarra. Hint, hint.
The point of the book is simply to announce homosexuality is a positive value in Objectivism, or, at least it's not a negative. (It's been years actually since I have read this book. What I'm stating here is from memory of it.) All of Ayn Rand's standing on a soapbox in a New York park denouncing the homosexual as immoral aside, her Objectivist philosophy contains nothing, asserts Chris Sciabarra, to mar the value of the life of a homosexual man or woman; in fact, Objectivst philosophy and homosexuality are surprisingly well-suited for one another. To be free and gay in an Objectivist way is positively liberating -- or can be -- is what Sciabarra's book is meaning to say.
This book, while a positive experience to read, is merely a Dutch thumb in a huge hole of Objectivist homophobia and prejudice (or any religion, really). Not only is more wanting to be said on the subject, more is needing to be said.
0 of 8 people found the following review helpful
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I would write a more extensive review of this noxious book, except there is no content about which to write a review. The book is an compilation of non-sequitors, ad hominems, and empty rhetoric so absorbed in itself that it fails to even take an objective philosophical stance with regards to its subject.
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