Myth Trumps Abstraction

It’s in the nature of a cosmic joke—namely that the Profetessa of Individualism, Ayn Rand, a lady born in the land that gave Communism its first serious incarnation, should be inspiring the Tea Party movement in America. Myth always beats abstraction, the story trumps the syllogism. Ayn Rand’s myth operated as an undercurrent here since I arrived in 1951—but not until recent times has her cult caught on lending what is known as “excitement” to a political contest.