Most reasonable people have wondered how could it be that something as crazy as the Church of Scientology got as big as it has. What made L. Ron Hubbard think he could successfully pull off such a preposterous scam as founding a religion involving aliens and the like and get lots of people to give their money, time, and lives to it?
Similarly, many of us have wondered what the appeal Ayn Rand’s bizarre philosophy is and how it too could grab the imagination of so many.
How did the founders of these two movement come up with these ideas and the belief that such scams could ever succeed? Cracked has a short video that reveals all.
(Via Mark Frauenfelder.)
She doesn’t sound at ALL like Ayn Rand. Rand had a very thick accent.
PS -- Opium doesn’t cause vivid enough hallucinations to account for either Scientology or Objectivism. Nacho cheese doritoes: maybe. But a goofy philosophy: no.
I always had this insane belief that Rand was actually a Soviet agent provocateur sent to America to introduce a version of capitalist ideology that a) was so obnoxious that people would run screaming to Communism, and/or b) ruin American civilization if it was ever implemented.
As for L. Ron? He was just a lying, scheming asshole.
Brian Leiter, professor of philosophy at Texas-Austin, calls Ayn Rand “Nietzsche for stupid people.”
Brilliant!
jws1, #4:
I’ve long called Ayn Rand “the poor man’s Nietzsche.”
No, I think Rand is pretty much what she always appeared to be: the scion of a line of power, privilege, and entitlement who got annoyed that her family lost all that in the Revolution, and spent her entire life coming up with justifications why she personally deserved to have all of that back again. Smart enough to come up with justifications, but not smart enough to see the flaws in them; she appealed to people like her who felt entitled to more than what they currently had.
I really don’t think it’s anything more than that. I think she was a true believer in her own bullshit.
That’s far different from Hubbard, who actively was a con-man who sought out people who had issues and created a cult atmosphere around them, along with a whole bunch of rules cribbed from other religions like the Mormons for ensuring the group would police itself.
“The poor man’s Nietzsche” for rich men.
I always had this insane belief that Rand was actually a Soviet agent provocateur sent to America to introduce a version of capitalist ideology that a) was so obnoxious that people would run screaming to Communism, and/or b) ruin American civilization if it was ever implemented.
The least plausible part of that theory is the timing: Rand came to America long before the Soviet propaganda/intelligence system was sophisticated enough to have created her.
And besides, by the 1930s capitalist ideology was already toxic, obnoxious and stupid enough without Soviet help. Why do you think anyone would support a Communist revolution in the first place?