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Ayn Rand, Conservatism, & the Devil – 16 Page 8.5 x 5.5 in. Saddle-Stitched Booklet.

Ayn Rand, Conservatism, & the Devil - 16 Page 8.5 x 5.5 in. Saddle-Stitched Booklet.

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Introduction: Ayn Rand, Conservatism, and the Devil

As recently as 1991, a survey by the Library of Congress ranked Atlas Shrugged the second-most influential book in the United States, second to the bible. Written as Ayn Rand’s Magnum opus in 1957 Atlas Shrugged depicts a collectivist dystopia. Individual liberty and private enterprise are being expunged by way of taxation and regulation. Donald Trump’s favorite writer, Ayn Rand’s work has been championed by Christian conservatives and plagiarised in The Satanic Bible

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Ayn Rand’s philosophy, Objectivism, laid the foundation of Modern Satanism in 1969 when it was appropriated by Anton LaVey. More than half a century later Ayn Rand has become the conservative equivalent of Karl Marx; atheism included. Her tenants are touted by right-wing politicians; ideas preached to a majority Christian voter base.

Ayn Rand is simultaneously the mother of contemporary conservatism and Modern Satanism.

Ayn Rand: Red is not a Creative Color

Born to a prosperous family in 1905 Ayn Rand came of age at the cusp of the October Revolution. Her family’s business was subsequently confiscated. They would face continued hardship under communist rule.

However, universities began admitting women and Rand was among the first to enroll. While studying history she was introduced to Aristotle; her greatest influence. She was purged from the university shortly before graduating along with other bourgeois students. 

She arrived in the United States on a visa in 1926 intent on becoming a writer. She’d find success fictionalizing her profound experience under communist rule. The Red Scare in full-swing, she struck a chord during The Cold War and doubled down. Writing romantic odes to capitalism and individuality. 

Fervently anti-communist, Rand became the, “creator of a new form of morality.”  

Atlas Shrugged and Objectivism: Let’s Get Randian

Atlas Shrugged follows the railroad heiress Dagny Taggart. As leaders flee to John Galt’s capitalist utopia American industry grinds to a halt under new government restrictions. Society breaks down and Dagny searches out Galt. When found Galt explains that, “the men of the mind,” are on strike. Withholding innovation from a society that demands personal sacrifice. The book acts as a fictionalized introduction to Objectivism.

An inverted Marxism, Objectivism is a moral defense of self-interest and laissez-faire capitalism. Rand believed the ambitious suffer at the hands of bureaucrats and collectivists. Who infringe the individual liberties of the affluent. 

She saw rational self-interest as a sole moral responsibility and means of cooperation. Cooperation under coercion by the state is immoral, like taxation. 

Simply put Ayn Rand exalts selfishness and admonishes altruism.

Modern Satanism: Ayn Rand for Rebels

Anton LaVey, the father of Modern Satanism, rose to prominence as a Bay Area occultist. A local celebrity, Lavey began attracting notable San Franciscan socialites. He started giving lectures and performing rituals during regular parties. The jumping off point of his first religious   organization, Order of the Trapezoid. A group that later renamed itself The Church of Satan.

Riding a wave of public interest LaVey found a publisher for his Satanic Bible and consequently struggled to reach the deadline a year later. In a flurry of expropriation he outlined his philosophy, it would be Ayn Rand’s.

He lifted his Nine Satanic Statements directly from Atlas Shrugged. They promote materialism, atheism, and self-indulgence. A diluted form of Randian ethics.

LaVey said of his religion, “I give people Ayn Rand, with trappings.”

The New Right: Fair is Laissez-Faire

Late in 2008, with anger brewing over corporate bailouts, Liberatarian views began gaining mainstream traction. Conservative pundits aligned themselves with the growing sentiment and the TEA Party quickly became the focal point of right-wing politics. They would espouse the virtues of Ayn Rand.

She soon permeated the Republican voter base. A match made in heaven, Rand’s philosophy of unregulated markets and individual liberty would help elect senators like Rand Paul. Eventually reaching the White House in Donald Trump, a fan of her work.

She’s even a regular point of reference for Rush Limbaugh. Ted Cruz would be quoted as saying she’s one his, “all-time heroes.” Conveniently sweeping Rand’s atheism  and contempt for religion aside. 

Conservatives have successfully distorted and repackaged Rand’s laissez-faire policies under the auspice of personal freedom. To the benefit of their donors.

Summary: Up is Down, Left is Right

For Rand’s part she’d be embittered by all of this. Republicans and Satanists lie at opposite ends of the political and religious spectrum. Yet they share a fundamental commonality, the philosophy of Ayn Rand.

Christian conservatives hold religious beliefs betrayed by votes and political opinions. In support of Donald Trump. 

The Satanic Temple, The Church of Satan’s predecessor, sees a windfall of new members opposing the Trump presidency. As they preach the very philosophy that elected him. 

The cognitive dissonance is undeniable. In the end, a Satanist is an anti-Christian who never read Ayn Rand. Conservatives are Christians who have. The result is the same.

Two antithetical groups with the same morality and objective, self-interest. A metaphor for American politics.

Sources: 

https://catholicism.org/ayn-rand-conservatisms-favorite-philosopher.html

https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB123146363567166677

https://www.newsweek.com/trump-administration-embraces-ayn-rand-disdain-masses-579685

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/post/what-ayn-rand-says-about-paul-ryan/2012/08/13/fd40d574-e56d-11e1-8741-940e3f6dbf48_blog.html

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2009/09/ayn-rand-in-modern-american-politics/348124/

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A Scanner Darkly Reality – 12 Page 8.5 x 5.5 in. Saddle-Stitched Booklet.

A Scanner Reality - 16 Page 8.5 x 5.5 in. Saddle-Stitched Booklet.

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Introduction: A Scanner Reality

In 1977 Phillip K. Dick published the dystopian sci-fi classic A Scanner Darkly. Robert Arctor, the books protagonist, is an addict; his mental capacities slowly degrading. Using Substance D an addictive pharmaceutical. A blind servant of an unseen force.

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More than forty years later middle America is in the grips of an opioid epidemic. Four out of five new drug addicts say they began with the abuse of Oxycontin. An opiate that entered the market under the auspice of ‘non-addictive’. Lining the pockets of doctors and corporations alike.

Two stories in seemingly disparate realities. Then again, “Reality, by itself, becomes a story by Phillip K. Dick.”

A Scanner Darkly: A Summary

Robert Arctor is an undercover agent who’s addicted to a pharmaceutical, ‘Substance D’. Working anonymously for the police department, under the psuedonym ‘Fred’, Arctor dwells with a long list of addicts in his family’s former home. A house in the suburbs where addiction is now routine.

Arctor, his cognitive abilities waning, is assigned to investigate himself. Paranoid accusations abound Arctor’s friends begin to turn on him and slowly he loses touch with reality. No longer certain of his own actions Arctor checks into rehab at New-Path. 

New-Path, a federal contractor, is the only option for ‘D’ addicts. Stripping his ‘addictive personality’ Arctor takes on the name ‘Bruce’ and is transferred to a New-Path farm. A secluded operation growing the flower Mors Ontologica; Substance D’s chief ingredient.

Oxycontin: Engineering an Epidemic

Near the end of 1995 the F.D.A. approved the opioid painkiller Oxycontin. Hailed as a ‘medical breakthrough’ it hit the market in 1996 patented by Purdue Pharma. Whom lied in assuring the medical community patients would not become addicted. Aggressively marketing Oxycontin Purdue Pharma bought influence with professors, politicians, and researchers.

It quickly became, “the hottest thing on the street.” Between 1991 and 2011 painkiller prescriptions more than tripled. By 2012 one in three drug users were being prescribed drugs more powerful than morphine. Killing over 400,000 since 2000; with 15 seeking treatment for every death.

After more than $30 billion in profits, in 2018, a Purdue Pharma subsidiary patented an addiction treatment for opioid addicts.

Reality: A Story by Phillip K. Dick

In A Scanner Darkly Substance D is distributed by New-Path. In reality Oxycontin is distributed by pharmacists and doctors. In both cases entities whom society entrusted to cure sickened. All the while turning a profit.

Addiction treatment is a $35 billion a year industry. Those who pay are, “…punished entirely too much for what they did.”

While people die, serve prison sentences, and deal with the consequences of addiction, New-Path profits.

While people die, serve prison sentences, and deal with the consequences of addiction, drug companies profit.

“Every junkie, he thought, is a

Recording.”

“It’s easy to win. Anybody can win.”

Sources:

https://www.drugabuse.gov/drugs-abuse/opioids/opioid-overdose-crisis

https://www.hhs.gov/opioids/about-the-epidemic/index.html

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2018/09/28/652546095/drugmakers-play-the-patent-game-to-lock-in-prices-block-competitors

https://www.usda.gov/topics/opioids

https://www.northpointwashington.com/blog/big-pharma-big-lies/

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Art Theft – 24 Page 8.5 x 5.5 in. Saddle-Stitched Booklet.

Art is Theft - 16 Page 8.5 x 5.5 in. Saddle-Stitched Booklet.

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Pablo Picasso

“Good artists copy, great artists steal”

Four boys discovered the Lascaux cave accidentally in 1940; a French cave complex with more than 600 parietal paintings estimated at 17,000 years old. The most famous cave being ‘The Hall of Bulls’. That same year Picasso would visit the cave. Emerging to say, “They’ve invented everything.” In 1945 Picasso created The Bull, a series of 11 Lithographs. The caves weren’t available for public viewing until 1948.

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Michelangelo

“The greater danger for most of us lies … in setting our aim too low, and achieving our mark.”

Discobulus of Myron, a Greek sculpture from the Classical Period of which the Renaissance was based, figures an athletic youth throwing a discus. The work survives via numerous studies by Roman artists. Like those 1200 years before Michelangelo would spend his youth studying works of the Classical Period, under the Medici. Studies which lead to the penultimate symbol of the Renaissance, ‘David’.

Marcel Duchamp:

“I came to feel an artist might use anything to say what he(or she) wanted to say.”

Davinci’s Mona Lisa is perhaps the world’s most well-known painting. Studied endlessly Marcel Duchamp was the first to parody the work in 1919. As what Duchamp referred to as a ‘readymade’: common objects altered, renamed, and placed in a proper setting. L.H.O.O.Q is a cheap print of the Mona Lisa onto which Duchamp drew a moustache and beard in pencil then appended the title.

Andy Warhol:

Reporter: So you’ve just copied a household item then? Why have you bothered to do that? Andy: Because it’s easier to do.

In 1916 bottlers of Coca-Cola formed a committee and convened to select a design. Soon distinct green bottles with an embossed script began to appear nationwide. Thirty years later less than 1% of Americans could not identify a Coke bottle by shape alone. In 1962 Andy Warhol displayed hand-painted depictions of the bottle in an art show The Grocery Store.

Summary:

Show me something you think original and I’ll show you a lack of reference.

The Beatles lifted lyrics and melodies from Chuck Berry. Hunter S. Thompson typed out Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby word for word while practicing prose. Vermeer traced his images using Camera Obscura. Originality is just a pseudonym for ‘beg, borrow, and steal’. 

Creativity is being brave enough to rip something off.

Be brave.

Sources:

http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/prehistoric/lascaux-cave-paintings.htm

http://www.euskomedia.org/PDFAnlt/munibe/aa/200503217223.pdf

https://www.dailyartmagazine.com/pablo-picassos-bulls-road-simplicity/

http://www.accademia.org/michelangelo/

http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/definitions/classicism-in-art.htm

https://www.wikiart.org/en/marcel-duchamp/l-h-o-o-q-mona-lisa-with-moustache-1919

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L.H.O.O.Q.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Warhol

https://www.coca-colacompany.com/stories/the-story-of-the-coca-cola-bottle

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/beatles-5-boldest-rip-offs-54145/

*Disclaimer: This zine features digital reproductions of famous works.

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