Hi all,
My comparison of Ayn Rand to Joni Mitchell was in no way sarcastic. And, I
considered it a compliment to Joni.
You can call Ayn Rand's philosophy of objectivism heartless and lacking in
compassion. That's easy to do while sitting in our cozy armchairs of
touchy-feely political correctness. We've been taught that we can't even
use the word "mankind" without offending women, we can't call a person with
dwarfism a dwarf, etc., etc. For generations, we have been trained that
"insensitive" and "selfish" are the worst things people could ever be. To
people who really buy into that, Ayn Rand must seem like a total AntiChrist.
But she had a lot of compassion. And she was very keen on the rights of
people to be themselves -- women were equal, people of alternative
lifestyles or consciousness were totally free to express who and what they
were.
Remember that Ayn Rand escaped communist Russia. She was writing during a
period in America's history in which people were being molded by extreme
patriotism and persecuted socially if they failed to conform.
McCarthy was attacking communists, the rise of commercialism was attacking
free thought and artistic expression in general. People were encouraged to
live in similar houses, wear similar clothing, think similar thoughts, enjoy
similar affluence. Those were the days when being different was dangerous.
Ayn Rand spoke out against it, all of it -- she smacked the "star-maker
machinery behind the popular thought" right upside the head. Something
tells me that she would be pleased with some of the strides we have made in
ending prejudice and discrimination -- but she also would be totally
disgusted with the sugarcoating and hypocrisy that still exists. Like Joni,
Rand hated hypocrisy. Both have been quick to point out that a lot of human
politics espousing compassion are very similar to a western town on a
Hollywood set -- the buildings look good on the front, but there's nothing
but two-by-fours propping them up.
Rand had high and lofty ideas about true love, artistic expression,
individualism, standing up for what is right despite what "other people"
think. Her heros in Atlas Shrugged were creative -- they created something
new and different, whether the critics liked it or not.
Frankly, there is no musical artist in our generation that falls in line
with Ayn Rand's philosophy as much as Joni Mitchell. Joni is one of the
most outspoken writers of our time in any genre. She dared to speak her
mind on so many topics, just as Ayn Rand did. (She also has a bit of a
cultish following, just as Ayn Rand did, too.)
The song Shadows and Light is almost a primer in the basic philosophy of
objectivism. Magdalene Laundries, Tax Free, For the Roses, even Big Yellow
Taxi, and so many others scream Joni's disgust with the dullness of the
masses -- "if it's not hot in People magazine, then it's not hot with us."
To me, Joni's social commentary is almost identical to Ayn Rand's, even
though some of their little details may vary. Neither one of them pleases
all of the people all of the time.
Given their generations, I would say they are very similar thinkers. Rand
promoted sensible selfishness in a period of senseless altruism. Joni
promoted sensible altruism in a period of senseless selfishness. Both were
great artists who were brave enough to speak up.
Ayn Rand had a sense of romance that was very heady and intellectual -- not
nearly as sensual as Joni Mitchell's. Rand had no compassion for people who
refused to grow. Rand might have come off as a bit snobbish or cold, but
then she wasn't looking at life from both sides of the outlandishly
rose-colored love-and-peace glasses the hippie generation was wearing in the
1970s, either.
I would recommend reading "We the Living," a very short novel that delivers
a major jolt about the human soul. I feel the same kind of jolt from a lot
of Joni Mitchell songs.
I forgive Ayn Rand her comments about atheism, too, for some inexplicable
reason.
Regards,
Harper Lou
